ever heard about it, or noticed it, or—or—or—” He felt that he was very awkward, and he blushed. Major as he was, he blushed as he sat before the old woman, trying to tell his story, but not knowing how to tell it. “The truth is, Miss Prettyman, I have done all but ask her to be my wife, and now has come this terrible affair about her father.”
“It is a terrible affair, Major Grantly; very terrible.”
“By Jove, you may say that!”
“Of course Mr. Crawley is as innocent in the matter as you or I are.”
“You think so, Miss Prettyman?”
“Think so! I feel quite sure of it. What; a clergyman of the Church of England, a pious, hard-working country clergyman, whom we have known among us by his good works for years, suddenly turn thief, and pilfer a few pounds! It is not possible, Major Grantly. And the father of such a daughter, too! It is not possible. It may do for men of business to think so, lawyers and such like, who are obliged to think in accordance with the evidence, as they call it; but to my mind the idea is monstrous. I don’t know how he got it, and I don’t care; but I’m quite sure he did not steal it. Whoever heard of anybody becoming so base as that all at once?”
The major was startled by her eloquence, and by the indignant tone of voice in which it was expressed. It seemed to tell him that she would give him no sympathy in that which he had come to say to her, and to upbraid him already in that he was not prepared to do the magnificent thing of which he had thought when he had been building his castles in the air. Why should he not do the magnificent thing? Miss Prettyman’s eloquence was so strong that it half convinced him that the Barchester Club and Mr. Walker had come to a wrong conclusion after all.
“And how does Miss Crawley bear it?” he asked, desirous of postponing for a while any declaration of his own purpose.
“She is very unhappy, of course. Not that she thinks evil of her father.”
“Of course she does not think him guilty.”
“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 girl! it is a great trial for her. Do you wish me to give her any message, Major Grantly?”
The moment had now come in which he must say that which he had come to say. The little woman waited for an answer, and as he was there, within her power as it were, he must speak. I fear that what he said will not be approved by any strong-minded reader. I fear that our lover will henceforth be considered by such a one as being but a weak, wishy-washy man, who had hardly any mind of his own to speak of;—that he was a man of no account, as the poor people say. “Miss Prettyman, what message ought I to send to her?” he said.
“Nay, Major Grantly, how can I tell you that? How can I put words into your mouth?”
“It isn’t the words,” he said; “but the feelings.”
“And how can I tell the feelings of your heart?”
“Oh, as for that, I know what my feelings are. I do love her with all my heart;—I do, indeed. A fortnight ago I was only thinking whether she would accept me when I asked her,—wondering whether I was too old for her, and whether she would mind having Edith to take care of.”
“She is very fond of Edith,—very fond indeed.”
“Is she?” said the major, more distracted than ever. Why should he not do the magnificent thing after all? “But it is a great charge for a young girl when she marries.”
“It is a great charge;—a very great charge. It is for you to think whether you should entrust so great a charge to one so young.”
“I have no fear about that at all.”
“Nor should I have any,—as you ask me. We have known Grace well, thoroughly, and are quite sure that she will do her duty in that state of life to which it may please 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