The Last Chronicle of Barset

CHAPTER II

BY HEAV­ENS, HE HAD BET­TER NOT!

I must ask the read­er to make ac­quain­tance with Ma­jor Grant­ly of Cos­by Lodge, be­fore he is in­tro­duced to the fam­ily of Mr Craw­ley, at their par­son­age at Hog­gle­stock. It has been said that Ma­jor Grant­ly had thrown a favourable eye on Grace Craw­ley–by which re­port oc­ca­sion was giv­en to all men and wom­en in those parts to hint that the Craw­leys, with all their piety and hu­mil­ity, were very cun­ning, and that one of the Grantlys was–to say the least of it–very soft, ad­mit­ted as it was through­out the coun­ty of Barset­shire, that there was no fam­ily there­in more wide­ly awake to the af­fairs gen­er­al­ly of this world and the next com­bined, than the fam­ily of which Archdea­con Grant­ly was the re­spect­ed head and pa­tri­arch. Mrs Walk­er, the most good-​na­tured wom­an in Sil­ver­bridge, had ac­knowl­edged to her daugh­ter that she could not un­der­stand it–that she could not see any­thing at all in Grace Craw­ley. Mr Walk­er had shrugged his shoul­ders and ex­pressed a con­fi­dent be­lief that Ma­jor Grant­ly had not a shilling of his own be­yond his half-​pay and his late wife’s for­tune, which was on­ly six thou­sand pounds. Oth­ers, who were ill-​na­tured, had de­clared that Grace Craw­ley was lit­tle bet­ter than a beg­gar, and that she could not pos­si­bly have ac­quired the man­ners of a gen­tle­wom­an. Fletch­er the butch­er had won­dered whether the ma­jor would pay his fu­ture fa­ther-​in-​law’s debts; and Dr Tem­pest, the old Rec­tor of Sil­ver­bridge, whose four daugh­ters were all as yet un­mar­ried, had turned up his old nose, and had hint­ed that half-​pay ma­jors did not get caught in mar­riage so eas­ily as that.

Such and such like had been the ex­pres­sions of the opin­ions of men and wom­en in Sil­ver­bridge. But the mat­ter had been dis­cussed fur­ther afield than at Sil­ver­bridge, and had been al­lowed to in­trude it­self as a most un­wel­come sub­ject in­to the fam­ily con­clave of the archdea­con’s rec­to­ry. To those who have not as yet learned the fact from the pub­lic char­ac­ter and well-​ap­pre­ci­at­ed rep­uta­tion of the man, let it be known that Archdea­con Grant­ly was at this time, as he had been for many years pre­vi­ous­ly, Archdea­con of Barch­ester and Rec­tor of Plum­stead Epis­copi. A rich and pros­per­ous man he had even been–though he al­so had had his sore trou­bles, as we all have–his hav­ing arisen chiefly from want of that high­er ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal pro­mo­tion which his soul had cov­et­ed, and for which the whole tenor of his life had es­pe­cial­ly fit­ted him. Now, in his green old age, he had ceased to cov­et, but had not ceased to re­pine. He had ceased to cov­et aught for him­self, but still cov­et­ed much for his chil­dren; and for him such a mar­riage as this which was now sug­gest­ed for his son, was en­com­passed al­most with the bit­ter­ness of death. ‘I think it would kill me,’ he said to his wife; ‘by heav­ens, I think it would be my death!’

A daugh­ter of the archdea­con had made a splen­did mat­ri­mo­ni­al al­liance–so splen­did that its his­to­ry was at the time known to all the aris­toc­ra­cy of the coun­ty, and had not been al­to­geth­er for­got­ten by any of those who keep them­selves well in­struct­ed in the de­tails of the peer­age. Grisel­da Grant­ly had mar­ried Lord Dumb­el­lo, the el­dest don of the Mar­quis of Hartle­top–than whom no En­glish no­ble­man was more puis­sant, if broad acres, many cas­tles, high ti­tle, and stars and rib­bons are any sign of puis­sance–and she was now, her­self, Mar­chioness of Hartle­top, with a lit­tle Lord Dumb­el­lo of her own. The daugh­ter’s vis­its to the par­son­age of her fa­ther were of ne­ces­si­ty rare, such ne­ces­si­ty hav­ing come from her own al­tered sphere of life. A Mar­chioness of Hartle­top has spe­cial du­ties which will hard­ly per­mit her to de­vote her­self fre­quent­ly to the hum­drum so­ci­ety of a cler­ical moth­er and fa­ther. That it would be so, fa­ther and moth­er had un­der­stood when they sent the for­tu­nate girl forth to a high­er world. But, now and again, since her au­gust mar­riage, she had laid her coro­net­ed head up­on one of the old rec­to­ry pil­lows for a night or so, and, on such oc­ca­sions all the Plum­stea­di­ans had been loud in praise of her con­de­scen­sion. Now it hap­pened that when this sec­ond and more ag­gra­vat­ed blast of the evil wind reached the rec­to­ry–the re­newed waft as to Ma­jor Grant­ly’s in­fat­ua­tion re­gard­ing Miss Grace Craw­ley, which, on its re­new­al, seemed to bring with it some­thing of a con­fir­ma­tion–it chanced, I say, that at that mo­ment Grisel­da, Mar­chioness of Hartle­top, was grac­ing the pa­ter­nal man­sion.

I am not quite sure that the moth­er would have been equal­ly quick to ask her daugh­ter’s ad­vice, had she been left in the mat­ter en­tire­ly to her own propen­si­ties. Mrs Grant­ly had ev­er loved her daugh­ter dear­ly, and had been very proud of that great suc­cess in life which Grisel­da had achieved; but in late years, the child had be­come, as a wom­an, sep­arate from the moth­er, and there had arisen not un­nat­ural­ly, a break of that close con­fi­dence which in ear­ly years had ex­ist­ed be­tween them. Grisel­da, Mar­chioness of Hartle­top, was more than ev­er the daugh­ter of the archdea­con, even though he might nev­er see her. Noth­ing could rob him of the hon­our of such a proge­ny–noth­ing, even though there had been an ac­tu­al es­trange­ment be­tween them. But it was not so with Mrs Grant­ly. Grisel­da had done very well, and Mrs Grant­ly had re­joiced; but she had lost her child. Now the ma­jor, who had done well al­so, though in a much less­er de­gree, was still her child, mov­ing in the same sphere of life with her, still de­pen­dent in a great de­gree up­on his fa­ther’s boun­ty, a neigh­bour in the coun­ty, a fre­quent vis­itor at the par­son­age, and a vis­itor who could be re­ceived with­out any of that trou­ble that at­tend­ed the un­fre­quent com­ings of Grisel­da, the Mar­chioness, to the home of her youth. And for this rea­son Mrs Grant­ly, ter­ri­bly put out as she was at the idea of a mar­riage be­tween her son and one stand­ing so poor­ly in the world’s es­teem as Grace Craw­ley, would not have brought for­ward the mat­ter be­fore her daugh­ter, had she been left to her own de­sires. A mar­chioness in one’s fam­ily is a tow­er of strength, no doubt; but there are coun­sel­lors so strong that we do not wish to trust them, lest in the trust­ing we our­selves be over­whelmed by their strength. Now Mrs Grant­ly was by no means will­ing to throw her in­flu­ence in­to the hands of her ti­tled daugh­ter.

But the ti­tled daugh­ter was con­sult­ed and gave her ad­vice. On the oc­ca­sion of the present vis­it to Plum­stead she had con­sent­ed to lay her head for two nights on the par­son­age pil­lows, and on the sec­ond evening her broth­er the ma­jor was to come over from Cos­by Lodge to meet her. Be­fore his com­ing the af­fair of Grace Craw­ley was dis­cussed.

‘It would break my heart, Grisel­da,’said the archdea­con, piteous­ly–’and your moth­er’s.’

‘There is noth­ing against the girl’s char­ac­ter,’ said Mrs Grant­ly, ‘and the fa­ther and moth­er are gen­tle­folk by birth; but such a mar­riage for Hen­ry would be un­seem­ly.’

‘To make it worse, there is a ter­ri­ble sto­ry about him,’ said the archdea­con.

‘I don’t sup­pose there is much in that,’ said Mrs Grant­ly.

‘I can’t say. There is no know­ing. They told me to­day in Barch­ester that Soames is press­ing a case against him.’

‘Who is Soames, pa­pa?’ asked the mar­chioness.

‘He is Lord Lufton’s man of busi­ness, my dear.’

‘Oh, Lord Lufton’s man of busi­ness!’ There was some­thing of a sneer in the tone of the la­dy’s voice as she men­tioned Lord Lufton’s name.

‘I am told,’ con­tin­ued the archdea­con, ‘that Soames de­clares the cheque was tak­en from a pock­et-​book which he left by ac­ci­dent in Craw­ley’s house.’

‘You don’t mean to say, archdea­con, that you think that Mr Craw­ley–a cler­gy­man–stole it!’ said Mrs Grant­ly.

‘I don’t say any­thing of the kind, my dear. But sup­pos­ing Mr Craw­ley to be as hon­est as the sun, you wouldn’t wish Hen­ry to mar­ry his daugh­ter.’

‘Cer­tain­ly not,’ said the moth­er. ‘It would be an un­fit­ting mar­riage. The poor girl has no ad­van­tages.’

‘He is not able to pay the bak­er’s bill. I al­ways though Ara­bin was very wrong to place such a man in such a parish as Hog­gle­stock. Of course the fam­ily could not live there.’ The Ara­bin here spo­ken of was Dr Ara­bin, dean of Barch­ester. The dean and archdea­con had mar­ried sis­ters, and there was much in­ti­ma­cy be­tween the fam­ilies.

‘Af­ter all it is on­ly ru­mour, as yet,’ said Mrs Grant­ly.

‘Fothergill told me on­ly yes­ter­day, that he sees her al­most ev­ery day,’ said the fa­ther. ‘What are we to do, Grisel­da? You know how head­strong Hen­ry is.’ The mar­chioness sat quite still; look­ing at the fire, and made no im­me­di­ate an­swer to this ad­dress.

‘There is noth­ing for it but that you should tell him what you think,’ said the moth­er.

‘If his sis­ter were to speak to him, it might do much,’ said the archdea­con. To this Mrs Grant­ly said noth­ing; but Mrs Grant­ly’s daugh­ter un­der­stood very well that her moth­er’s con­fi­dence in her was not equal to her fa­ther’s. La­dy Hartle­top said noth­ing, but still sat, with im­pas­sive face, and eyes fixed up­on the fire. ‘I think that if you were to speak to him, Grisel­da, and tell him that he would dis­grace his fam­ily, he would be ashamed to go on with such a mar­riage,’ said the fa­ther. ‘He would feel, con­nect­ed as he is with Lord Hartle­top–’

‘I don’t think he would feel any­thing about that,’ said Mrs Grant­ly.

‘I dare­say not,’ said La­dy Hartle­top.

‘I am sure he ought to feel it,’ said the fa­ther. They were all silent, and sat look­ing at the fire.

‘I sup­pose, pa­pa, you al­low Hen­ry an in­come,’ said La­dy Hartle­top, af­ter a while.

‘In­deed I do–eight hun­dred a year.’

‘Then I think I should tell him that that must de­pend up­on his con­duct. Mam­ma, if you won’t mind ring­ing the bell, I will send for Ce­cile, and go up­stairs and dress.’ Then the mar­chioness went up­stairs to dress, and in about an hour the ma­jor ar­rived in his dog­cart. He was al­so al­lowed to go up­stairs to dress be­fore any­thing was said to him about his great of­fence.

‘Grisel­da is right,’ said the archdea­con, speak­ing to his wife out of his dress­ing-​room. ‘She is al­ways right. I nev­er knew a young wom­an with more sense than Grisel­da.’

‘But you do not mean to say that in any event you would stop Hen­ry’s in­come?’ Mrs Grant­ly was al­so dress­ing and made re­ply out of her bed­room.

‘Up­on my word, I don’t know. As a fa­ther I would do any­thing to pre­vent such a mar­riage as that.’

‘But if he did mar­ry her in spite of the threat? And he would if he had once said so.’

‘Is a fa­ther’s word, then, to go for noth­ing; and a fa­ther who al­lows his son eight hun­dred a year? If he told the girl that he would be ru­ined she couldn’t hold him to it.’

‘My dear, they’d know as well as I do, that you would give way af­ter three months.’

‘But why should I give way? Good heav­ens–’

‘Of course you’d give way, and of course we should have the young wom­an here, and of course we should make the best of it.’

The idea of hav­ing Grace Craw­ley as a daugh­ter at the Plum­stead Rec­to­ry was too much for the archdea­con, and he re­sent­ed it by ad­di­tion­al ve­he­mence to the tone of his voice, and a near­er per­son­al ap­proach to the wife of his bo­som. All un­ac­cou­tred as he was, he stood in the door­way be­tween the two rooms, and thence ful­mi­nat­ed at his wife his as­sur­ances that he would nev­er al­low him­self to be im­mersed in such a depth of hu­mil­ity as that she had sug­gest­ed. ‘I can tell you this, then, that if ev­er she comes here, I shall take care to be away. I will nev­er re­ceive her here. You can do as you please.’

‘That is just what I can­not do. If I could do as I pleased, I would put a stop to it at once.’

‘It seems to me that you want to en­cour­age him. A child about six­teen years of age!’

‘I am told she is nine­teen.’

‘What does it mat­ter if she’s fifty-​nine? Think of what her bring­ing up has been. Think what it would be to have all the Craw­leys in our house for ev­er, and all their debts, and all their dis­grace!’

‘I do not know that they have ev­er been dis­graced.’

‘You’ll see. The whole coun­ty has heard of the af­fair of this twen­ty pounds. Look at that dear girl up­stairs, who has been such a com­fort to us. Do you think it would be fit that she and her hus­band should meet such a one as Grace Craw­ley at our ta­ble?’

‘I don’t think it would do them a bit of harm,’ said Mrs Grant­ly. ‘But there would be no chance of that, see­ing that Grisel­da’s hus­band nev­er comes to us.’

‘He was here the year be­fore last.’

‘And I nev­er was so tired of a man in my life.’

‘Then you pre­fer the Craw­leys, I sup­pose. This is what you get from Eleanor’s teach­ing.’ Eleanor was the dean’s wife, and Mrs Grant­ly’s younger sis­ter. ‘It has al­ways been a sor­row to me that I ev­er brought Ara­bin in­to the dio­cese.’

‘I nev­er asked you to bring him, archdea­con. But no­body was so glad as you when he pro­posed to Eleanor.’

‘Well, the long and the short of it is this, I shall tell Hen­ry tonight that if he makes a fool of him­self with this girl, he must not look to me any longer for an in­come. He has about six thou­sand a year of his own, and if he choos­es to throw him­self away, he had bet­ter go and live in the south of France, or in Cana­da, or where he pleas­es. He shan’t come here.’

‘I hope he won’t mar­ry the girl, with all my heart,’ said Mrs Grant­ly.

‘He had bet­ter not. By heav­ens, he had bet­ter not!’

‘But if he does, you’ll be the first to for­give him.’

On hear­ing this the archdea­con slammed the door, and re­tired to his own wash­ing ap­pa­ra­tus. At the present mo­ment he was very an­gry with his wife, but then he was so ac­cus­tomed to such anger, and was so well aware that it in truth meant noth­ing, that it did not make him un­hap­py. The archdea­con and Mrs Grant­ly had now been man and wife for more than quar­ter of a cen­tu­ry and had nev­er in truth quar­relled. He had the most pro­found re­spect for her judg­ment, and the most im­plic­it re­liance on her con­duct. She had nev­er yet of­fend­ed him, or caused him to re­pent the hour in which he had made her Mrs Grant­ly. But she had come to un­der­stand that she might use a wom­an’s priv­ilege with her tongue; and she used it–not al­to­geth­er to his com­fort. On the present oc­ca­sion he was the more an­noyed be­cause he felt that she might be right. ‘It would be a pos­itive dis­grace, and I nev­er would see him again,’ he said to him­self. And yet as he said it, he knew that he would not have the strength of char­ac­ter to car­ry him through a pro­longed quar­rel with his son. ‘I nev­er would see her–nev­er, nev­er!’ he said to him­self. ‘And then such an open­ing as he might have in his sis­ter’s house!’

Ma­jor Grant­ly had been a suc­cess­ful man in life–with the one ex­cep­tion of hav­ing lost the moth­er of his child with­in a twelve-​month of his mar­riage and with­in a few hours of that child’s birth. He had served in In­dia as a very young man, and had been dec­orat­ed with the Vic­to­ria Cross. Then he had mar­ried a la­dy with some mon­ey, and had left the ac­tive ser­vice of the army, with the con­cur­ring ad­vice of his own fam­ily and that of his wife. He had tak­en a small place in his fa­ther’s coun­ty, but the wife for whose com­fort he had tak­en it had died be­fore she was per­mit­ted to see it. Nev­er­the­less he had gone to re­side there, hunt­ing a good deal and farm­ing a lit­tle, mak­ing him­self pop­ular in the dis­trict, and keep­ing up the good name of Grant­ly in a suc­cess­ful way, till–alas!,–it had seemed good to him to throw those favour­ing eyes on poor Grace Craw­ley. His wife had now been dead just two years, and he was still un­der thir­ty, no one could de­ny it would be right that he should mar­ry again. No one did de­ny it. His fa­ther had hint­ed that he ought to do so, and had gen­er­ous­ly whis­pered that if some lit­tle in­crease to the ma­jor’s present in­come were need­ed, he might pos­si­bly be able to do some­thing. ‘What is the good of keep­ing it?’ the archdea­con had said in a lib­er­al af­ter-​din­ner warmth; ‘I on­ly want it for your broth­er and your­self.’ The broth­er was a cler­gy­man.

And the ma­jor’s moth­er had strong­ly ad­vised him to mar­ry again with­out loss of time. ‘My dear Hen­ry,’ she had said, ‘you’ll nev­er be younger, and youth does go for some­thing. As for dear lit­tle Edith, be­ing a girl, she is al­most no im­ped­iment. Do you know those two girls at Chaldicotes?’

‘What, Mrs Thorne’s nieces?’

‘No; they are not her nieces but her cousins. Emi­ly Dun­sta­ble is very hand­some;–and as for mon­ey–!’

‘But what about birth, moth­er?’

‘One can’t have ev­ery­thing, my dear.’

‘As far as I am con­cerned, I should like to have ev­ery­thing or noth­ing,’ the ma­jor said, laugh­ing. Now for him to think of Grace Craw­ley af­ter that–of Grace Craw­ley who had no mon­ey, and no par­tic­ular birth, and not even beau­ty her­self–so at least Mrs Grant­ly said–who had not even en­joyed the or­di­nary ed­uca­tion of a la­dy, was too bad. Noth­ing had been want­ing to Emi­ly Dun­sta­ble’s ed­uca­tion, and it was cal­cu­lat­ed that she would have at least twen­ty thou­sand pounds on the day of her mar­riage.

The dis­ap­point­ment of the moth­er would be the more sore be­cause she had gone to work up­on her lit­tle scheme with ref­er­ence to Miss Emi­ly Dun­sta­ble, and had at first, as she thought, seen her way to suc­cess–to suc­cess in spite of the dis­parag­ing words her son had spo­ken to her. Mrs Thorne’s house at Chaldicotes–or Dr Thorne’s house as it should, per­haps, be more com­mon­ly called, for Dr Thorne was the hus­band of Mrs Thorne–was in these days the pleas­an­test house in Barset­shire. No one saw so much com­pa­ny as the Thornes, or spent so much mon­ey in so pleas­ant a way. The great coun­ty fam­ilies, the Pal­lis­ers and the De Cour­cys, the Luftons and the Gre­shams, were no doubt grander, and some of them were per­haps rich­er than the Chaldicote Thornes–as they were called to dis­tin­guish them from the Thornes of Ul­lathorne; but none of these peo­ple were so pleas­ant in their ways, so free in their hos­pi­tal­ity, or so easy in their modes of liv­ing, as the doc­tor and his wife. When first Chaldicotes, a very old coun­try seat, had by the chances of war fall­en in­to their hands and been new­ly fur­nished, and new­ly dec­orat­ed, and new­ly gar­dened, and new­ly green­housed and hot-​wa­tered by them, many of the coun­ty peo­ple had turned up their noses at them. Dear old La­dy Lufton had done so, and had been great­ly grieved–say­ing noth­ing, how­ev­er, of her grief, when her son and daugh­ter-​in-​law had bro­ken away from her, and sub­mit­ted them­selves to the blan­dish­ments of the doc­tor’s wife. And the Grantlys had stood aloof, part­ly in­flu­enced, no doubt, by their dear and in­ti­mate old friend Miss Mon­ica Thorne of Ul­lathorne, a la­dy of the very old school, who, though good as gold and kind as char­ity, could not en­dure that an in­ter­lop­ing Mrs Thorne, who nev­er had a grand­fa­ther, should come to hon­our and glo­ry in the coun­ty, sim­ply be­cause of her rich­es. Miss Mon­ica Thorne stood out, but Mrs Grant­ly gave way, and hav­ing once found that Dr Thorne, and Mrs Thorne, and Emi­ly Dun­sta­ble, and Chaldicote House to­geth­er, were very charm­ing. And the ma­jor had been once there with her, and had made him­self very pleas­ant, and there cer­tain­ly had been some lit­tle pas­sage of in­cip­ient love be­tween him and Miss Dun­sta­ble, as to which Mrs Thorne, who man­aged ev­ery­thing, seemed to be well pleased. This had been af­ter the first men­tion made by Mrs Grant­ly to her son of Emi­ly Dun­sta­ble’s name, but be­fore she had heard any faintest whis­pers of his fan­cy for Grace Craw­ley; and she had there­fore been jus­ti­fied in hop­ing–al­most in ex­pect­ing, that Emi­ly Dun­sta­ble would be her daugh­ter-​in-​law, and was there­fore the more ag­grieved when this ter­ri­ble Craw­ley per­il first opened it­self be­fore her eyes.