The Last Chronicle of Barset

CHAPTER XXVIII

SHOW­ING HOW MA­JOR GRANT­LY TOOK A WALK

Ma­jor Grant­ly drove his gig in­to the yard of the ‘Red Li­on’ at Alling­ton, and from thence walked away at once to Mrs Dale’s house. When he reached the vil­lage he had hard­ly made up his mind as the way in which he would be­gin his at­tack; but now, as he went down the street, he re­solved that he would first ask for Mrs Dale. Most prob­ably he would find him­self in the pres­ence of Mrs Dale and her daugh­ter, and of Grace al­so, at his first en­trance; and if so, his po­si­tion would be awk­ward enough. He al­most re­gret­ted now that he had not writ­ten to Mrs Dale, and asked for an in­ter­view. His task would be very dif­fi­cult if he should find all the ladies to­geth­er. But he was strong enough in the feel­ing that when his pur­pose was told it would meet the ap­proval at any rate of Mrs Dale; and he walked bold­ly on, and brave­ly knocked at the door of the Small House, as he had al­ready learned that Mrs Dale’s res­idence was called by the neigh­bour­hood. No­body was at home, the ser­vant said; and then, when the vis­itor be­gan to make fur­ther in­quiry, the girl ex­plained that the two young ladies had walked as far as Guest­wick Cot­tage, and that Mrs Dale was at this mo­ment at the Great House with the squire. She had gone across soon af­ter the young ladies had start­ed. The maid, how­ev­er, was in­ter­rupt­ed be­fore she had fin­ished telling all this to the ma­jor, by find­ing her mis­tress be­hind her in the pas­sage. Mrs Dale had re­turned, and had en­tered the house from the lawn.

‘I am here now, Jane,’ said Mrs Dale, ‘if the gen­tle­man wish­es to see me.’

Then the ma­jor an­nounced him­self. ‘My name is Ma­jor Grant­ly,’ said he; and he was blun­der­ing on with some words about his own in­tru­sion, when Mrs Dale begged him to fol­low her in­to the draw­ing-​room. He had mut­tered some­thing to the ef­fect that Mrs Dale would not know who he was; but Mrs Dale knew all about him, and had heard the whole of Grace’s sto­ry from Lily. She and Lily had of­ten dis­cussed the ques­tion whether, un­der ex­ist­ing cir­cum­stances, Ma­jor Grant­ly should feel him­self bound to of­fer his hand to Grace, and the moth­er and daugh­ter had dif­fered some­what on the mat­ter. Mrs Dale had held that he was not so bound, urg­ing that the un­for­tu­nate po­si­tion in which Mr Craw­ley was placed was so calami­tous to all con­nect­ed with him, as to jus­ti­fy any man, not ab­so­lute­ly en­gaged, in aban­don­ing the thoughts of such a mar­riage. Mrs Dale had spo­ken of Ma­jor Grant­ly’s fa­ther and moth­er and broth­er and sis­ter, and had de­clared her opin­ion that they were en­ti­tled to con­sid­er­ation. But Lily had op­posed this idea very stout­ly, as­sert­ing that in an af­fair of love a man should think nei­ther of fa­ther or broth­er of moth­er or sis­ter. ‘If he is worth any­thing,’ Lily had said, ‘he will come to her now–in her trou­ble; and will tell her that she at least has got a friend who will be true to her. If he does that, then I shall think that there is some­thing of the po­et­ry and no­ble­ness of love left.’ In an­swer to this Mrs Dale had replied that wom­en had no right to ex­pect from men such self-​deny­ing no­bil­ity as that. ‘I don’t ex­pect it, mam­ma,’ said Lily. ‘And I am sure that Grace does not. In­deed I am quite sure that Grace does not ex­pect even to see him ev­er again. She nev­er says so, but I know that she has made up her mind about it. Still I think he ought to come.’ ‘It can hard­ly be that a man is bound to do a thing, the do­ing of which, as you con­fess, would be al­most more than no­ble,’ said Mrs Dale. And so the mat­ter had been dis­cussed be­tween them. But now, as it seemed to Mrs Dale, the man had come to do the no­ble thing. At any rate he was there in her draw­ing-​room, and be­fore ei­ther of them had sat down he had con­trived to men­tion Grace. ‘You may not prob­ably have heard my name,’ he said,’ but I am ac­quaint­ed with your friend, Grace Craw­ley.’

‘I know your name very well, Ma­jor Grant­ly. My broth­er-​in-​law who lives down yon­der, Mr Dale, knows your fa­ther very well–or he did some years ago. And I have heard him say that he re­mem­bers you.’

‘I rec­ol­lect. He used to be stay­ing at Ul­lathorne. But that is a long time ago. Is he at home now?’

‘Mr Dale is al­most al­ways at home. He very rarely goes away, and I am sure would be glad to see you.’

Then there was a lit­tle pause in the con­ver­sa­tion. They had man­aged to seat them­selves, and Mrs Dale had said enough to put her vis­itor fair­ly at his ease. If he had any­thing spe­cial to say to her, he must say it–any re­quest or propo­si­tion to make as to Grace Craw­ley, he must make it. And he did make it at once. ‘My ob­ject in com­ing to Alling­ton,’ he said, ‘was to see Miss Craw­ley.’

‘She and my daugh­ter have tak­en a long walk to call on a friend, and I am afraid they will stay for lunch; but they will cer­tain­ly be home be­tween three and four, if that is not too long for you to re­main at Alling­ton.’

‘Oh, dear, no,’ said he. ‘It will not hurt me to wait.’

‘It cer­tain­ly will not hurt me, Ma­jor Grant­ly. Per­haps you will lunch with me?’

‘I’ll tell you what, Mrs Dale; if you’ll per­mit me, I’ll ex­plain to you why I have come here. In­deed, I have in­tend­ed to do so all through, and I can on­ly ask you to keep my se­cret, if af­ter all it should re­quire to be kept.’

‘I will cer­tain­ly keep any se­cret that you may ask me to keep,’ said Mrs Dale, tak­ing off her bon­net.

‘I hope there may be no need of one,’ said Ma­jor Grant­ly. ‘The truth is, Mrs Dale, that I have known Grace Craw­ley for some time–near­ly for two years now, and–I may as well speak it out at once–I have made up my mind to ask her to be my wife. That is why I am here.’ Con­sid­er­ing the na­ture of the state­ment, which must have been em­bar­rass­ing, I think that it was made with flu­en­cy and sim­plic­ity.

‘Of course, Ma­jor Grant­ly, you know that I have no au­thor­ity with our young friend,’ said Mrs Dale. ‘I mean that she is not con­nect­ed with us by fam­ily ties. She has a fa­ther and moth­er, liv­ing, as I be­lieve, in the same coun­ty as your­self.’

‘I know that, Mrs Dale.’

‘And you may, per­haps, un­der­stand that, as Miss Craw­ley is now stay­ing with me, I owe it in a mea­sure to her friends to ask you whether they are aware of your in­ten­tion.’

‘They are not aware of it.’

‘I know that at the present mo­ment they are in great trou­ble.’

Mrs Dale was go­ing on, but she was in­ter­rupt­ed by Ma­jor Grant­ly. ‘That is just it,’ he said. ‘There are cir­cum­stances at present which make it al­most im­pos­si­ble that I should go to Mr Craw­ley and ask his per­mis­sion to ad­dress his daugh­ter. I do not know whether you have heard the whole sto­ry?’

‘As much, I be­lieve, as Grace could tell me.’

‘He is, I be­lieve, in such a state of men­tal dis­tress as to be hard­ly ca­pa­ble of giv­ing me a con­sid­er­ate an­swer. And I should not know how to speak to him, or how not to speak to him, about this un­for­tu­nate af­fair. But, Mrs Dale, you will, I think, per­ceive that the same cir­cum­stances make it im­per­ative up­on me to be ex­plic­it to Miss Craw­ley. I think I am the last man to boast of a wom­an’s re­gard, but I had learned to think that I was not in­dif­fer­ent to Grace. If that be so, what must she think of me if I stay away from her now?’

‘She un­der­stands too well the weight of the mis­for­tune which has fall­en up­on her fa­ther, to sup­pose that any­one not con­nect­ed with her can be bound to share it.’

‘That is just it. She will think that I am silent for that rea­son. I have de­ter­mined that that shall not keep me silent, and, there­fore, I have come here. I may, per­haps, be able to bring com­fort to her in her trou­ble. As re­gards my world­ly po­si­tion–though, in­deed, it will not be very good–as hers is not good ei­ther, you will not think your­self bound to for­bid me to see her on that head.’

‘Cer­tain­ly not. I need hard­ly say that I ful­ly un­der­stand that, as re­gards mon­ey, you are of­fer­ing ev­ery­thing where you can get noth­ing.’

‘And you un­der­stand my feel­ing?’

‘In­deed I do–and ap­pre­ci­ate the great no­bil­ity of your love for Grace. You shall see her here, if you wish it–and to­day, if you choose to wait.’ Ma­jor Grant­ly said that he would wait and would see Grace on that af­ter­noon. Mrs Dale again sug­gest­ed that he should lunch with her, but this he de­clined. She then pro­posed that he should go across and call up­on the squire, and thus con­sume his time. But to this he al­so ob­ject­ed. He was not ex­act­ly in hu­mour, he said, to re­new so old and so slight an ac­quain­tance at that time. Mr Dale would prob­ably have for­got­ten him, and would be sure to ask what had brought him to Alling­ton. He would go and take a walk, he said, and come again at ex­act­ly half-​past three. Mrs Dale again ex­pressed her cer­tain­ty that the young ladies would be back by that time, and Ma­jor Grant­ly left the house.

Mrs Dale when she was left alone could not but com­pare the good for­tune that was await­ing Grace, with the evil for­tune which had fall­en on her own child. Here was a man who was at all points a gen­tle­man. Such, at least, was the char­ac­ter which Mrs Dale at once con­ced­ed to him. And Grace had chanced to come across this man, and to please his eye, and sat­is­fy his taste, and be loved by him. And the re­sult of that chance would be that Grace would have ev­ery­thing giv­en to her that the world has to give worth ac­cep­tance. She would have a com­pan­ion for her life whom she could trust, ad­mire, love, and of whom she could be in­finite­ly proud. Mrs Dale was not at all aware whether Ma­jor Grant­ly might have five hun­dred a year to spend, or five thou­sand–or what sum in­ter­me­di­ate be­tween the two–nor did she give much of her thoughts at the mo­ment to that side of the sub­ject. She knew with­out think­ing of it–or fan­cied that she knew, that there were means suf­fi­cient for com­fort­able liv­ing. It was sole­ly the na­ture and char­ac­ter of the man that was in her mind, and the suf­fi­cien­cy that was to be found in them for a wife’s hap­pi­ness. But her daugh­ter, her Lily, had come across a man who was a scoundrel, and, as the con­se­quence of that meet­ing, all her life was marred! Could any cred­it be giv­en to Grace for her suc­cess, or any blame at­tached to Lily for her fail­ure. Sure­ly not the lat­ter! How was her girl to have guard­ed her­self from a love so un­for­tu­nate, or have avoid­ed the rock on which her ves­sel had been ship­wrecked? Then many bit­ter thoughts passed through Mrs Dale’s mind, and she al­most en­vied Grace Craw­ley her lover. Lily was con­tent­ed to re­main as she was, but Lily’s moth­er could not bring her­self to be sat­is­fied that her child should fill a low­er place in the world than oth­er girls. It had ev­er been her idea–an ide­al prob­ably nev­er ab­so­lute­ly ut­tered even to her­self, but not the less prac­ti­cal­ly con­ceived–that it is the busi­ness of a wom­an to be mar­ried. That her Lily should have been won and not worn, had been, and would be, a trou­ble to her for ev­er.

Ma­jor Grant­ly went back to the inn and saw his horse fed, and smoked a cigar, and then, find­ing that it was still on­ly just one o’clock, he start­ed off for a walk. He was care­ful not to go out of Alling­ton by the road he had en­tered it, as he had no wish to en­counter Grace and her friend on their re­turn to the vil­lage; so he crossed a lit­tle brook which runs at the bot­tom of the hill on which the chief street of Alling­ton is built, and turned in­to a field-​path to the left as soon as he had got be­yond the hous­es. Not know­ing the ge­og­ra­phy of the place he did not un­der­stand that by tak­ing that path he was mak­ing his way back to the squire’s house; but it was so; and af­ter saun­ter­ing on for about a mile and cross­ing back again over the stream, of which he took no no­tice, he found him­self lean­ing across a gate, and look­ing in­to a pad­dock on the oth­er side of which was the high wall of a gen­tle­man’s gar­den. To avoid this he went on a lit­tle far­ther and found him­self on a farm road, and be­fore he could re­trace his steps so as not to be seen, he met a gen­tle­man whom he pre­sumed to be the own­er of the house. It was the squire sur­vey­ing his home farm, as was his dai­ly cus­tom; but Ma­jor Grant­ly had not per­ceived that the house must of ne­ces­si­ty be Alling­ton House, hav­ing been aware that he had passed the en­trance to the place, as he en­tered the vil­lage on the oth­er side. ‘I’m afraid I’m in­trud­ing,’ he said, lift­ing his hat. ‘I came up the path yon­der, not know­ing that it would lead me so close to a gen­tle­man’s house.’

‘There’s a right of way through the fields on to the Guest­wick road,’ said the squire, ‘and there­fore you are not tres­pass­ing in any sense; but we are not par­tic­ular about such things down here, and you would be very wel­come if there were no right of way. If you are a stranger, per­haps you would like to see the out­side of the old house. Peo­ple think it pic­turesque.’

Then Ma­jor Grant­ly be­came aware that this must be the squire, and he was an­noyed with him­self for his own awk­ward­ness in hav­ing thus come up­on the house. He would have wished to keep him­self al­to­geth­er un­seen if it had been pos­si­ble–and es­pe­cial­ly un­seen by this old gen­tle­man, to whom, now that he had met him, he was al­most bound to in­tro­duce him­self. But he was not ab­so­lute­ly bound to do so, and he de­ter­mined that he would still keep his peace. Even if the squire should af­ter­wards hear of his hav­ing been there, what would it mat­ter? But to pro­claim him­self at the present mo­ment would be dis­agree­able to him. He per­mit­ted the squire, how­ev­er, to lead him to the front of the house, and in a few mo­ments was stand­ing on the ter­race hear­ing an ac­count of the ar­chi­tec­ture of the man­sion.

You can see the date still in the brick­work of one of the chim­neys–that is, if your eyes are very good you can see it–1617. It was com­plet­ed in that year, and very lit­tle has been done to it since. We think the chim­neys are pret­ty.’

‘They are very pret­ty,’ said the ma­jor. ‘In­deed, the house al­to­geth­er is as grace­ful as it can be.’

‘Those trees are old too,’ said the squire, point­ing to two cedars which stood at the side of the house. ‘They say they are old­er than the house but I don’t feel sure of it. There was a man­sion here be­fore, very near­ly, though not quite, on the same spot.’

‘Your own an­ces­tors were liv­ing here be­fore that, I sup­pose?’ said Grant­ly, mean­ing to be civ­il.

‘Well, yes; two or three hun­dred years be­fore it, I sup­pose. If you don’t mind com­ing down to the church­yard, you’ll get an ex­cel­lent view of the house;–by far the best there is. By-​the-​by, would you like to step in and take a glass of wine?’

‘I’m very much obliged,’ said the ma­jor, ‘but in­deed I’d rather not.’ Then he fol­lowed the squire down to the church­yard, and was shown the church as well as the view of the house, and the vicarage, and a view over to Alling­ton woods from the vicarage gate, of which the squire was very fond, and in this way he was tak­en back on to the Guest­wick side of the vil­lage, and even down on the road by which he had en­tered it, with­out in the least know­ing where he was. He looked at his watch, and saw that it was past two. ‘I’m very much obliged to you, sir,’ he said again tak­ing off his hat to the squire, ‘and if I shall not be in­trud­ing, I’ll make my way back to the vil­lage.’

‘What vil­lage?’

‘To Alling­ton,’ said Grant­ly.

‘This is Alling­ton,’ said the squire; and as he spoke, Lily Dale and Grace Craw­ley turned the cor­ner from the Guest­wick road and came close up­on them. ‘Well, girls, I did not ex­pect to see you,’ said the squire; ‘your mam­ma told me you wouldn’t be back till it was near­ly dark, Lily.’

‘We have come back ear­li­er than we in­tend­ed,’ said Lily. She of course had seen the stranger with her un­cle, and know­ing the ways of the squire in such mat­ters had ex­pect­ed to be in­tro­duced to him. But the read­er will be aware that no in­tro­duc­tion was pos­si­ble. It nev­er oc­curred to Lily that this man could be Ma­jor Grant­ly of whom she and Grace had been talk­ing dur­ing the whole length of the walk home. But Grace and her lover had of course known each oth­er at once, and Grant­ly, though he was abashed and al­most dis­mayed by the meet­ing, of course came for­ward and gave his hand to his friend. Grace in tak­ing it did not ut­ter a word.

‘Per­haps I ought to have in­tro­duced my­self to you as Ma­jor Grant­ly,’ said he, turn­ing to the squire.

‘Ma­jor Grant­ly! Dear me! I had no idea that you were ex­pect­ed in these parts.’

‘I have come with­out be­ing ex­pect­ed.’

‘You are very wel­come, I’m sure. I hope your fa­ther is well? I used to know him some years ago, and I dare­say he has not for­got­ten me.’ Then, while the girls stood by in si­lence, and while Grant­ly was en­deav­our­ing to es­cape, the squire in­vit­ed him very warm­ly to send his port­man­teau up to the house. ‘We’ll have the ladies up from the house be­low, and make it as lit­tle dull for you as pos­si­ble.’ But this would not have suit­ed Grant­ly–at any rate would not suit him till he should know what an­swer he was to have. He ex­cused him­self there­fore, plead­ing a pos­itive ne­ces­si­ty to be at Guest­wick that evening, and then, ex­plain­ing that he had al­ready seen Mrs Dale, he ex­pressed his in­ten­tion of go­ing back to the Small House in com­pa­ny with the ladies, if they would al­low him. The squire, who did not yet quite un­der­stand it all, bade him a for­mal adieu, and Lily led the way home down be­hind the church­yard wall and through the bot­tom of the gar­dens be­long­ing to the Great House. She of course knew now who the stranger was, and did all in her pow­er to re­lieve Grace of her em­bar­rass­ment. Grace had hith­er­to not spo­ken a sin­gle word since she had seen her lover, nor did she say a word to him in their walk to the house. And, in truth, he was not much more com­mu­nica­tive than Grace. Lily did all the talk­ing, and with won­der­ful fe­male skill con­trived to have some words ready for use till they all found them­selves to­geth­er in Mrs Dale’s draw­ing-​room. ‘I have caught a ma­jor, mam­ma, and land­ed him,’ said Lily laugh­ing, ‘but I’m afraid, from what I hear, that you had caught him first.’