The Last Chronicle of Barset

CHAPTER LXIII

TWO VIS­ITORS TO HOG­GLE­STOCK

The cross-​grained­ness of men is so great that things will of­ten be forced to go wrong, even when they have the strongest pos­si­ble nat­ural ten­den­cy of their own to go right. It was now in these af­fairs be­tween the archdea­con and his son. The orig­inal dif­fi­cul­ty was solved by the good feel­ing of the young la­dy–by that and by the re­al kind­ness of the archdea­con’s na­ture. They had come to terms which were sat­is­fac­to­ry to both of them, and those terms ad­mit­ted of per­fect rec­on­cil­ia­tion be­tween the fa­ther and his son. Whether the ma­jor did mar­ry the la­dy or whether he did not, his al­lowance was to be con­tin­ued to him, the archdea­con be­ing per­fect­ly will­ing to trust him­self in the mat­ter to the pledge which had re­ceived from Miss Craw­ley. All that he had re­quired from his son was sim­ply this–that he should pull down the bills ad­ver­tis­ing the sale of his ef­fects. Was any de­sire more ra­tio­nal? The sale had been ad­ver­tised for a day just one week in ad­vance of the as­sizes, and the time must have been se­lect­ed–so thought the archdea­con–with a ma­li­cious in­ten­tion. Why, at any rate, should the things be sold be­fore any­one knew whether the fa­ther of the young la­dy was or was not to be re­gard­ed as a thief? And why should the things be sold at all, when the archdea­con had tac­it­ly with­drawn his threats–when he had giv­en his son to un­der­stand that the al­lowance would still be paid quar­ter­ly with the cus­tom­ary archidi­aconal reg­ular­ity, and that no al­ter­ation was in­tend­ed in those set­tle­ments un­der which the Plum­stead fox­es would, in the ripeness of time, be­come the prop­er­ty of the ma­jor him­self. It was thus that the archdea­con looked at it, and as he did so, he thought that his son was the most cross-​grained of men.

But the ma­jor had his own way of look­ing at the mat­ter. He had, he flat­tered him­self, dealt very fair­ly with his fa­ther. When he had first made up his mind to make Miss Craw­ley his wife, he had told his fa­ther of his in­ten­tion. The archdea­con de­clared that, if he did so, such and such re­sults would fol­low–re­sults which, as was ap­par­ent to ev­ery­one, would make it in­dis­pens­able that the ma­jor should leave Cos­by Lodge. The ma­jor had nev­er com­plained. So he told him­self. He had sim­ply said to his fa­ther–’I shall do as I have said. You can do as you have said. There­fore, I shall pre­pare to leave Cos­by Lodge.’ He had so pre­pared; and as a part of that prepa­ra­tion, the auc­tion­eer’s bills had been stuck up on the posts and walls. Then the archdea­con had gone to work sur­rep­ti­tious­ly with the la­dy–the read­er will un­der­stand that we are still fol­low­ing the work­ings of the ma­jor’s mind–and hav­ing suc­ceed­ed in ob­tain­ing a pledge which he had been wrong to de­mand, came for­ward very gra­cious­ly to with­draw his threats. He with­drew his threats be­cause he had suc­ceed­ed in his ob­ject by oth­er means. The ma­jor knew noth­ing of the kiss that had been giv­en, of the two tears that had trick­led down his fa­ther’s nose, of the gen­er­ous ep­ithets which the archdea­con had ap­plied to Grace. He did not guess how near­ly his fa­ther had yield­ed al­to­geth­er be­neath the pres­sure of Grace’s charms–how will­ing he was to yield al­to­geth­er at the first de­cent op­por­tu­ni­ty. His fa­ther had ob­tained a pledge from Grace that she would not mar­ry in cer­tain cir­cum­stances–as to which cir­cum­stances the ma­jor was strong­ly re­solved that they should form no bar to his mar­riage–and then came for­ward with his ea­ger de­mand that the sale should be stopped! The ma­jor could not sub­mit to so much in­dig­ni­ty. He had re­solved that his fa­ther should have noth­ing to do with his mar­riage one way or the oth­er. He would not ac­cept any­thing from his fa­ther on the un­der­stand­ing that his fa­ther had any such right. His fa­ther had as­sert­ed such right with threats, and he, the ma­jor, tak­ing such threats as mean­ing some­thing, had seen that he must leave Cos­by Lodge. Let his fa­ther come for­ward, and say that they meant noth­ing that he aban­doned all right to any in­ter­fer­ence as to his son’s mar­riage, and that the son–would du­ti­ful­ly con­sent to ac­cept his fa­ther’s boun­ty! They were both cross-​grained, as Mrs Grant­ly de­clared; but I think that the ma­jor was the most cross-​grained of the two.

Some­thing of the truth made its way to Hen­ry Grant­ly’s mind as he drove home from Barch­ester af­ter see­ing his grand­fa­ther. It was not that he be­gan to think that his fa­ther was right, but that he al­most per­ceived that it might be be­com­ing to him to for­give some fault in his fa­ther. He had been im­plored to hon­our his fa­ther, and he was will­ing to do so, un­der­stand­ing that such hon­our must, to a cer­tain de­gree, im­ply obe­di­ence–if it could be done at no more than a mod­er­ate ex­pense of his feel­ings. The threat­ened auc­tion­eer was the cause of of­fence to his fa­ther, and he might see whether it would not be pos­si­ble to have the sale post­poned. There would, of course, be a pe­cu­niary loss, and that in his di­min­ished cir­cum­stances–might be in­con­ve­nient. But so much he thought him­self bound to en­dure on his fa­ther’s be­half. At any rate, he would con­sult the auc­tion­eer at Sil­ver­bridge.

But he would not make any pause in the mea­sures which he had pro­posed to him­self as like­ly to be con­ducive to his mar­riage. As for Grace’s pledge, such pledges from young ladies nev­er went for any­thing. It was out of the ques­tion that she should be sac­ri­ficed, even though his fa­ther had tak­en the mon­ey. And, more­over, the very gist of the ma­jor’s gen­eros­ity was to con­sist in his mar­ry­ing her whether her fa­ther were guilty or in­no­cent. He un­der­stood that per­fect­ly, and un­der­stood al­so that it was his du­ty to make his pur­pose in this re­spect known to Grace’s fam­ily. He de­ter­mined, there­fore, that he would go over to Hog­gle­stock, and see Mr Craw­ley be­fore he saw the auc­tion­eer.

Hith­er­to Ma­jor Grant­ly had nev­er spo­ken to Mr Craw­ley. It may be re­mem­bered that the ma­jor was at the present mo­ment one of the bails­men for the due ap­pear­ance of Mr Craw­ley be­fore the judge, and that he had been present when the mag­is­trates sat at the inn in Sil­ver­bridge. He there­fore knew the man’s pres­ence, but ex­cept on that oc­ca­sion he had nev­er even seen his in­tend­ed fu­ture fa­ther-​in-​law. From that mo­ment when he had first al­lowed him­self to think of Grace, he had de­sired, yet al­most feared, to make ac­quain­tance with the fa­ther; but had been de­barred from do­ing so by the pe­cu­liar po­si­tion in which Mr Craw­ley was placed. He had felt that it would be im­pos­si­ble to speak to the fa­ther of his af­fec­tion for the daugh­ter with­out any al­lu­sion to the com­ing tri­al; and he did not know how such al­lu­sion could be made. Think­ing of this, he had at dif­fer­ent times al­most re­solved not to call at Hog­gle­stock till the tri­al might be over. Then he would go there, let the re­sult of the tri­al have been what it might. But it had now be­come nec­es­sary for him to go on at once. His fa­ther had pre­cip­itat­ed mat­ters by his ap­peal to Grace. He would ap­peal to Grace’s fa­ther, and reach Grace through his in­flu­ence.

He drove over to Hog­gle­stock, feel­ing him­self to be any­thing but com­fort­able as he came near to the house. And when he did reach the spot he was some­what dis­con­cert­ed to find that an­oth­er vis­itor was in the house be­fore him. He pre­sumed this to be the case, be­cause there stood a lit­tle pony horse–an an­imal which did not rec­om­mend it­self to his in­struct­ed eye–at­tached by its rein to the pal­ings. It was a poor hum­ble-​look­ing beast, whose knees had very late­ly be­come ac­quaint­ed with the hard and sharp stones of a new­ly-​mend­ed high­way. The blood was even now red up­on the wounds.

‘He’ll nev­er be much good again,’ said the ma­jor to his ser­vant.

‘That he won’t, sir,’ said the man. ‘But I don’t think he’s been very much good for some time back.’

‘I shouldn’t like to have to ride him in­to Sil­ver­bridge,’ said the ma­jor, de­scend­ing from the gig, and in­struct­ing his ser­vant to move the horse and gig about as long as he might re­main with­in the house. Then he walked across the lit­tle gar­den and knocked at the door. The door was im­me­di­ate­ly opened, and in the pas­sage he found Mr Craw­ley and an­oth­er cler­gy­man whom the read­er will recog­nise as Mr Thum­ble. Mr Thum­ble had come over to make ar­range­ments as to the Sun­day ser­vices and the parochial work, and had been very ur­gent in im­press­ing on Mr Craw­ley that the du­ties were to be left en­tire­ly to him­self. Hence had come some bit­ter words, in which Mr Craw­ley, though no doubt he said the sharp­er things of the two, had not been able to van­quish his en­emy so com­plete­ly as he had done of for­mer oc­ca­sions.

‘There must be no in­ter­fer­ence, my dear sir–not what­ev­er, if you please,’ Mr Thum­ble had said.

‘There shall be none of which the bish­op shall have rea­son to com­plain,’ Mr Craw­ley had replied.

‘There must be none at all, Mr Craw­ley, if you please. It is on­ly on that un­der­stand­ing that I have con­sent­ed to take the parish tem­porar­ily in­to my hands. Mrs Craw­ley, I hope that there may be no mis­take about the schools. It must be ex­act­ly as though I were re­sid­ing on the spot.’

‘Sir,’ said Mr Craw­ley, very irate at this ap­peal to his wife, and speak­ing in a loud voice, ‘do you mis­doubt my word; or do you think that if I were mind­ed to be false to you, that I should be cor­rect­ed in my false­hood by the firmer faith of my wife?’

‘I meant noth­ing about false­hood, Mr Craw­ley.’

‘Hav­ing re­signed the benefice for cer­tain rea­sons of my own, with which I shall not trou­ble you, and ac­knowl­edg­ing as I do–and have done in writ­ing un­der my hand to the bish­op–the pro­pri­ety of his lord­ship’s in­ter­fer­ence in pro­vid­ing for the ser­vices of the parish till any suc­ces­sor shall have been in­sti­tut­ed, I shall, with what feel­ings of re­gret, I need not say, leave you to the per­for­mance of your tem­po­rary du­ties.’

‘That is all that I re­quire, Mr Craw­ley.’

‘But it is whol­ly un­nec­es­sary that you should in­struct me in mine.’

‘The bish­op es­pe­cial­ly de­sires–’ be­gan Mr Thum­ble. But Mr Craw­ley in­ter­rupt­ed him in­stant­ly.

‘If the bish­op has di­rect­ed you to give me such in­struc­tions, the bish­op is much in er­ror. I will sub­mit to re­ceive none from him through you, sir. If you please, sir, let there be an end of it’; and Mr Craw­ley waved his hand. I hope the read­er will con­ceive the tone of Mr Craw­ley’s voice, and will ap­pre­ci­ate the as­pect of his face, and will see the mo­tion of his hand, as he spoke these lat­ter words. Mr Thum­ble felt the pow­er of the man so sen­si­bly that he was un­able to car­ry on the con­test. Thought Mr Craw­ley was now but a bro­ken reed, and was be­neath his feet, yet Mr Thum­ble ac­knowl­edged to him­self that he could not hold his own in de­bate with this bro­ken reed. But the words had been spo­ken, and the tone of the voice had died away, and the fire in the eyes had burned it­self out be­fore the mo­ment of the ma­jor’s ar­rival. Mr Thum­ble was now re­turn­ing to his horse, and hav­ing en­joyed–if he did en­joy–his lit­tle tri­umph about the parish, was be­com­ing un­hap­py at the fu­ture dan­gers that await­ed him. Per­haps he was the more un­hap­py be­cause it had been pro­posed to him by the au­thor­ities at the palace that he should re­peat­ed­ly ride on the same an­imal from Barch­ester to Hog­gle­stock and back. Mr Craw­ley was in the act of re­ply­ing to his lamen­ta­tions on this sub­ject with his hand on the latch, when the ma­jor ar­rived–’I re­gret to say, sir that I can­not as­sist you by sup­ply­ing any oth­er steed.’ Then the ma­jor had knocked, and Mr Craw­ley had at once opened the door.

‘You prob­ably do not re­mem­ber me, Mr Craw­ley?’ said the ma­jor. ‘I am Ma­jor Grant­ly.’ Mrs Craw­ley, who heard these words in­side the room, sprang up from her chair, and could hard­ly re­sist the temp­ta­tion to rush in­to the pas­sage. She too had bare­ly seen Ma­jor Grant­ly; and now the on­ly bright gleam which ap­peared on her hori­zon de­pend­ed on his con­stan­cy un­der cir­cum­stances which would have jus­ti­fied his in­con­stan­cy. But had he meant to be in­con­stant, sure­ly he would nev­er have come to Hog­gle­stock!’

‘I re­mem­ber you well, sir,’ said Mr Craw­ley. ‘I am un­der no com­mon obli­ga­tion to you. You are at present one of my bails­men.’

‘There’s noth­ing in that,’ said the ma­jor.

Mr Thum­ble had caught the name of Grant­ly, took off his hat, which he had put on his head. He had not been par­tic­ular in keep­ing off his hat be­fore Mr Craw­ley. But he knew well that Archdea­con Grant­ly was a big man in the dio­cese; and though the Grantlys and the Proud­ies were op­posed to each oth­er, still it might be well to take off his hat be­fore any­one who had to do with the big ones of the dio­cese. ‘I hope your re­spect­ed fa­ther is well, sir?’ said Mr Thum­ble.

‘Pret­ty well, I thank you.’ The ma­jor stood close up against the wall of the pas­sage, so as to al­low room for Mr Thum­ble to pass out. His busi­ness was one on which he could hard­ly be­gin to speak un­til the vis­itor had gone. Mr Craw­ley was stand­ing with the door wide open in his hand. He al­so was anx­ious to be rid of Mr Thum­ble–and was per­haps not so so­lic­itous as a broth­er cler­gy­man should have touch­ing the fu­ture fate of Mr Thum­ble in the mat­ter of the bish­op’s old cob.

‘Re­al­ly, I don’t know what to do as to get­ting up­on him again,’ said Mr Thum­ble.

‘If you will al­low him to progress slow­ly,’ said Mr Craw­ley, ‘he will prob­ably trav­el with greater safe­ty.’

‘I don’t know what you call slow, Mr Craw­ley. I was ev­er so much over two hours com­ing here from Barch­ester. He stum­bled al­most at ev­ery step.’

‘Did he fall while you were on him?’ asked the ma­jor.

‘In­deed he did, sir. You nev­er saw such a thing, Ma­jor Grant­ly. Look here.’ Then Mr Thum­ble, turn­ing round, showed that the rear por­tion of his clothes had not es­caped with­out in­jury.

‘It was well that he was not go­ing fast, or you would have come on to your head,’ said Grant­ly.

‘It was a mer­cy,’ said Thum­ble. ‘But, sir, as it was, I came to the ground with much vi­olence. It was on Spig­glewick Hill, where the road is cov­ered with loose stones. I see, sir, you have a gig and horse here, with a ser­vant. Per­haps, as the cir­cum­stances are so very pe­cu­liar–’ Then Mr Thum­ble stopped, and looked up in­to the ma­jor’s face with im­plor­ing eyes. But the ma­jor had no ten­der­ness for such suf­fer­ings. ‘I’m sor­ry to say that I am go­ing quite the oth­er way,’ he said. ‘I am re­turn­ing to Sil­ver­bridge.’

Mr Thum­ble hes­itat­ed, and then made a re­newed re­quest. ‘If you would not mind tak­ing me to Sil­ver­bridge, I could get home from thence by rail­way; and per­haps you would al­low your ser­vant to take the horse to Barch­ester.’

Ma­jor Grant­ly was for a mo­ment dumb­found­ed. ‘The re­quest is most un­rea­son­able, sir.’ said Mr Craw­ley.

‘That is as Ma­jor Grant­ly pleas­es to look at it,’ said Mr Thum­ble.

‘I am sor­ry to say that it is quite out of my pow­er,’ said the ma­jor.

‘You can sure­ly walk, lead­ing the beast, if you fear to mount him,’ said Mr Craw­ley.

‘I shall do as I please about that,’ said Mr Thum­ble. ‘And, Mr Craw­ley, if you will have the kind­ness to leave things in the parish just as they are–just as they are, I will be obliged to you. It is the bish­op’s wish that you should touch noth­ing.’ Mr Thum­ble was by this time on the step, and Mr Craw­ley in­stant­ly slammed the door. ‘The gen­tle­man is a cler­gy­man from Barch­ester,’ said Mr Craw­ley, mod­est­ly fold­ing his hands up­on his breast, ‘whom the bish­op has sent over here to take up­on him­self tem­porar­ily the ser­vices of the church, and it ap­pears, the du­ties al­so of the parish. I re­frain from an­imad­vert­ing up­on his lord­ship’s choice.’

‘And you are leav­ing Hog­gle­stock?’

‘When I have found a shel­ter for my wife and chil­dren I shall do so; nay, per­ad­ven­ture, I must do so be­fore any such shel­ter can be found. I shall pro­ceed in that mat­ter as I am bid. I am one who can re­gard my­self as no longer pos­sess­ing the priv­ilege of free ac­tion in any­thing. But while I have a room at your ser­vice, per­mit me to ask you to en­ter it.’ Then Mr Craw­ley mo­tioned him in with his hand, and Ma­jor Grant­ly found him­self in the pres­ence of Mrs Craw­ley and her younger daugh­ter.

He looked at them both for a mo­ment, and could trace much of the lines of that face which he loved so well. But the trou­bles of life had al­most robbed the el­der la­dy of her beau­ty; and with the younger, the awk­ward thin­ness of the last years of fem­inine child­hood had not yet giv­en place to the ful­fil­ment of fem­inine grace. But the like­ness in each was quite enough to make him feel that he ought to be at home in that room. He thought that he could love the wom­an as his moth­er, and the girl as his sis­ter. He found it very dif­fi­cult to be­gin any con­ver­sa­tion in their pres­ence, and yet it seemed to be his du­ty to be­gin. Mr Craw­ley had mar­shalled him in­to the room, and hav­ing done so, stood aside near the door. Mrs Craw­ley had re­ceived him very gra­cious­ly, and hav­ing done so, seemed to be ashamed of her own hos­pi­tal­ity. Poor Jane had shrunk back in­to a dis­tant cor­ner, near the open stand­ing desk at which she was ac­cus­tomed to read Greek to her fa­ther, and, of course, could not be ex­pect­ed to speak. If Ma­jor Grant­ly could have found him­self alone with any one of the three–nay, if he could have been there with any two, he could have opened his bud­get at once; but, be­fore all the fam­ily, he felt the dif­fi­cul­ty of his sit­ua­tion. ‘Mrs Craw­ley,’ said he, ‘I have been most anx­ious to make your ac­quain­tance, and I trust you will ex­cuse the lib­er­ty I have tak­en in call­ing.’

‘I feel grate­ful to you, as I am sure does al­so my hus­band.’ So much she said, and then felt an­gry with her­self for say­ing so much. Was she not ex­press­ing the strong hope that he might stand fast by her child, where­by the whole Craw­ley fam­ily would gain so much–and the Grant­ly fam­ily lose much, in the same pro­por­tion?

‘Sir,’ said Mr Craw­ley, ‘I owe you thanks, still un­ex­pressed, in that you came for­ward to­geth­er with Mr Ro­barts of Fram­ley, to sat­is­fy the not un­nat­ural req­ui­si­tion of the mag­is­trates be­fore whom I was called up­on to ap­pear in the ear­ly win­ter. I know not why any­one should have ven­tured in­to such jeop­ardy on my ac­count.’

‘There was no jeop­ardy, Mr Craw­ley. Any­one in the coun­ty would have done it.’

‘I know not that; nor can I see that there was no jeop­ardy. I trust that I may as­sure you that there is no dan­ger;–none, I mean, to you. The dan­ger to my­self and those be­long­ing to me, is, alas, very ur­gent. The facts of my po­si­tion are press­ing close up­on me. Me­thinks I suf­fer more from the vis­it of the gen­tle­man who has just de­part­ed from me than any­thing that has yet hap­pened to me. And yet he is right;–he is al­to­geth­er right.’

‘No, pa­pa; he is not,’ said Jane, from her stand­ing ground near the up­right desk.

‘My dear,’ said her fa­ther, ‘you should be silent on such a sub­ject. It is a mat­ter hard to be un­der­stood in all its bear­ings–even by those who are most con­ver­sant with them. But as this we need not trou­ble Ma­jor Grant­ly.’

Af­ter that there was si­lence among them, and for a while it seemed as though there could be no ap­proach to the sub­ject on which Grant­ly had come hith­er to ex­press him­self. Mrs Craw­ley, in her de­spair, said some­thing about the weath­er; and the ma­jor, try­ing to draw near the spe­cial sub­ject, be­came bold enough to re­mark ‘that he had the plea­sure of see­ing Miss Craw­ley at Fram­ley.’ ‘Mrs Ro­barts has been very kind,’ said Mrs Craw­ley, ‘very kind in­deed. You can un­der­stand, Ma­jor Grant­ly, that this must be a very sad house for a young per­son.’ ‘I don’t think it is at all sad,’ said Jane, still stand­ing in the cor­ner by the up­right desk.

Then Ma­jor Grant­ly rose from his seat and walked across to the girl and shook her hand. ‘You are so like your sis­ter,’ said he. ‘Your sis­ter is a great friend of mine. She has of­ten spo­ken to me of you. I hope we shall be friends some day.’ But Jane could make no an­swer to this, though she had been able to vin­di­cate the gen­er­al char­ac­ter of the house while she was left in the cor­ner by her­self. ‘I won­der whether you would be an­gry with me,’ con­tin­ued the ma­jor, ‘if I told you I want­ed to speak a word to your fa­ther and moth­er alone?’ To this Jane made no re­ply, but was out of the room al­most be­fore the words had reached the ears of her fa­ther and moth­er. Though she was on­ly six­teen, and had as yet read noth­ing but Latin and Greek–un­less we are to count the twelve books of Eu­clid and Wood’s Al­ge­bra, and sundry small­er ex­er­cis­es of the same de­scrip­tion–she un­der­stood, as well as any­one present, the rea­son why her ab­sence was re­quired.

As she closed the door the ma­jor paused for a mo­ment, ex­pect­ing, or per­haps hop­ing, that the fa­ther or the moth­er would say a word. But nei­ther of them had a word to say. They sat silent, and as though con­science-​strick­en. Here was a rich man, of whom they had heard that he might prob­ably wish to wed their daugh­ter. It was man­ifest enough to both of them that no man could mar­ry in­to their fam­ily with­out sub­ject­ing him­self to a heavy por­tion of that re­proach and dis­grace which was at­tached to them. But how was it pos­si­ble that they should not care more for their daugh­ter–for their own flesh and blood, than for the in­ci­den­tal wel­fare of this rich man? As re­gard­ed the man him­self they had heard ev­ery­thing that was good. Such a mar­riage was like the open­ing of a par­adise to their child. ‘Nil con­scire sibi,’ said the fa­ther to him­self, as he buck­led on his ar­mour for the fight.

When he had wait­ed for a mo­ment or two, he be­gan. ‘Mrs Craw­ley,’ he said, ad­dress­ing him­self to the moth­er, ‘I do not quite know how far you may be aware that I–that I have for some time been–been ac­quaint­ed with your el­dest daugh­ter.’

‘I have heard from her that she is ac­quaint­ed with you,’ said Mrs Craw­ley, al­most pant­ing with anx­iety.

‘I may as well make a clean breast of it at once,’ said the ma­jor, smil­ing, ‘and say out­right that I have come here to re­quest your per­mis­sion and her fa­ther’s to ask her to be my wife.’ Then he was silent, and for a few mo­ments nei­ther Mr nor Mrs Craw­ley replied to him. She looked at her hus­band, and he gazed at the fire, and the smile died away from the ma­jor’s face, as he watched the solem­ni­ty of them both. There was some­thing al­most for­bid­ding in the pe­cu­liar grav­ity of Mr Craw­ley’s coun­te­nance when, as at present, some­thing op­er­at­ed with­in him to cause him to ex­press dis­sent from any propo­si­tion that was made to him. ‘I do not know how far this may be al­to­geth­er new to you, Mrs Craw­ley,’ said the ma­jor, wait­ing for a re­ply.

‘It is not new to me,’ said Mrs Craw­ley.

‘May I hope, then, that you will not dis­ap­prove?’

‘Sir,’ said Mr Craw­ley, ‘I am so placed by the un­to­ward cir­cum­stances of my life that I can hard­ly claim to ex­er­cise over my own daugh­ter that au­thor­ity which should be­long to a par­ent.’

‘My dear, do not say that,’ said Mrs Craw­ley.

‘But I do say it. With­in three weeks of this time I may be a pris­on­er, sub­ject to the crim­inal laws of my coun­try. At this mo­ment I am with­out pow­er of earn­ing bread for my­self, or for my wife, or for my chil­dren. Ma­jor Grant­ly, you have even now seen the de­par­ture of the gen­tle­man who has been sent here to take my place in this parish. I am, as it were, an out­law here, and en­ti­tled nei­ther to obe­di­ence nor re­spect from those who un­der oth­er cir­cum­stances would be bound to give both.’

‘Ma­jor Grant­ly,’ said the poor wom­an, ‘no hus­band or fa­ther in the coun­ty is more close­ly obeyed or more thor­ough­ly re­spect­ed and loved.’

‘I am sure of it,’ said the ma­jor.

‘All this, how­ev­er, mat­ters noth­ing,’ said Mr Craw­ley, ‘and all speech on such home­ly mat­ters would amount to an im­per­ti­nence be­fore you, sir, were it not that you have hint­ed at the pur­pose of con­nect­ing your­self at some fu­ture time with this un­for­tu­nate fam­ily.’

‘I meant to be plain-​spo­ken, Mr Craw­ley.’

‘I did not mean to in­sin­uate, sir, that there was aught of ret­icence in your words, so con­trived that you might fall back on the vague­ness of your ex­pres­sion for pro­tec­tion, should you here­after see fit to change your pur­pose. I should have wronged you much by such a sug­ges­tion. I rather was mind­ed to make known to you that I–or, I should rather say, we,’ and Mr Craw­ley point­ed to his wife–’shall not ac­cept your plain­ness of speech as be­to­ken­ing aught be­yond a con­ceived idea in fur­ther­ance of which you have thought it ex­pe­di­ent to make cer­tain in­quiries.’

‘I don’t quite fol­low you,’ said the ma­jor. ‘But what I want you to do is to give me your con­sent to vis­it your daugh­ter; and I want Mrs Craw­ley to write to Grace and tell her that it’s all right.’ Mrs Craw­ley was quite sure that it was all right, and was ready to sit down and write the let­ter that mo­ment, if her hus­band would per­mit her to do so.

‘I am sor­ry that I have not been ex­plic­it,’ said Mr Craw­ley, ‘but I will en­deav­our to make my­self more plain­ly in­tel­li­gi­ble. My daugh­ter, sir, is so cir­cum­stanced in ref­er­ence to her fa­ther, that I, as her fa­ther and a gen­tle­man, can­not en­cour­age any man to make a ten­der to her of his hand.’

‘But I have made up my mind about all that.’

‘And I, sir, have made up mine. I dare not tell my girl that I think she will do well to place her hand in yours. A la­dy, when she does that, should feel at least that her hand is clean.’

‘It is the clean­est and the sweet­est and fairest hand in Barset­shire,’ said the ma­jor. Mrs Craw­ley could not re­strain her­self, but run­ning up to him, took his hand in hers and kissed it.

‘There is un­for­tu­nate­ly a stain, which is vi­car­ial,’ be­gan Mr Craw­ley, sus­tain­ing up to that point his voice with Ro­man for­ti­tude–with a for­ti­tude which would have been Ro­man had it not at that mo­ment bro­ken down un­der the pres­sure of hu­man feel­ing. He could keep it up no longer, but con­tin­ued his speech with bro­ken sobs, and with a voice al­to­geth­er changed in its tone–rapid now, where­as it had be­fore been slow–nat­ural, where­as it had hith­er­to been af­fect­ed–hu­man, where­as it had hith­er­to been Ro­man. ‘Ma­jor Grant­ly,’ he said. ‘I am sore be­set; but what can I say to you? My dar­ling is as pure as the light of day–on­ly that she is soiled with my im­pu­ri­ty. She is fit to grace the house of the best gen­tle­man in Eng­land, had I not made her un­fit.’

‘She shall grace mine,’ said the ma­jor. ‘By God she shall!–to­mor­row, if she’ll have me.’ Mrs Craw­ley, who was stand­ing be­side him, again raised his hand and kissed it.

‘It may not be so. As I be­gan by say­ing–or rather strove to say, for I have been over­tak­en by weak­ness, and can­not speak my mind–I can­not claim au­thor­ity over my child as would an­oth­er man. How can I ex­er­cise au­thor­ity from be­tween a prison’s bars?’

‘She would obey your slight­est wish,’ said Mrs Craw­ley.

‘I could ex­press no wish,’ said he. ‘But I know my girl, and I am sure that she will not con­sent to take in­famy with her in­to the house of the man who loves her.’

‘There will be no in­famy,’ said the ma­jor. ‘In­famy! I tell you that I shall be proud of the con­nex­ion.’

‘You, sir, are gen­er­ous in your pros­per­ity. We will strive to be at least just in our ad­ver­si­ty. My wife and chil­dren are to be pitied–be­cause of the hus­band and fa­ther.’

‘No!’ said Mrs Craw­ley. ‘I will not hear that said, with­out deny­ing it.’

‘But they must take their lot as it has been giv­en to them,’ con­tin­ued he. ‘Such a po­si­tion in life as that which you have pro­posed to be­stow up­on my child would be to her, as re­gards hu­man af­fairs, great el­eva­tion. And from what I have heard–I may be per­mit­ted to add al­so from what I now know from per­son­al ex­pe­ri­ence–such a mar­riage would be laden with fair promise and fu­ture hap­pi­ness. But if you ask my mind, I think that my child is not free to make it. You, sir, have many rel­atives, who are not in love, as you are, all of whom would be af­fect­ed by the stain of my dis­grace. No one should go to your house as your sec­ond wife who can­not feel that she will serve your child. My daugh­ter would feel that she was bring­ing in­jury up­on the babe. I can­not bid her do this–and I will not. Nor do I be­lieve that she would do so if I bid her.’ Then he turned his chair round, and sat with his face to the wall, wip­ing away the tears with a tat­tered hand­ker­chief.

Mrs Craw­ley led the ma­jor to the fur­ther win­dow, and there stood look­ing up in­to his face. It need hard­ly be said that they al­so were cry­ing. Whose eyes could have been dry af­ter such a scene–up­on hear­ing such words? ‘You had bet­ter go,’ said Mrs Craw­ley. ‘I know him so well. You had bet­ter go.’

‘Mrs Craw­ley,’ he said whis­per­ing to her, ‘if I ev­er desert her, may all that I love desert me! But will you help me?’

‘You would want no help, were it not for this trou­ble.’

‘But you will help me?’

Then she paused for a mo­ment, ‘I can do noth­ing,’ she said, ‘but what he bids me.’

‘You will trust me, at any rate,’ said the ma­jor.

‘I do trust you,’ she replied. Then he went with­out say­ing a word fur­ther to Mr Craw­ley. As soon as he was gone, the wife went over to her hus­band, and put her arm gen­tly round his neck as he was sit­ting. For a while the hus­band took no no­tice of his wife’s ca­ress, but sat mo­tion­less, with his face turned to the wall. Then she spoke to him a word or two, telling him that their vis­itor was gone. ‘My child!’ he said. ‘My poor child!, my dar­ling! She has found grace in this man’s sight; but even of that has her fa­ther robbed her! The Lord has vis­it­ed up­on the chil­dren the sins of the fa­ther, and will do so to the third and fourth gen­er­ation.’