The Last Chronicle of Barset (104 page)

When he had waited for a moment or two the major 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 us,' 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,' exclaimed 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 the 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 me 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,' continued 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 a 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 upon 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 as 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 the 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 the 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 learn by personal experience – such a marriage would be laden with fair promise of 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. You have a daughter, to whom all your solicitude is due. 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 to do this – and I will not. Nor do I believe that she would do so if I bade 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 away 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 you will 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 still 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.'
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Conway Dalrymple had hurried out of the room in Mrs Broughton's house in which he had been painting Jael and Sisera, thinking that it would be better to meet an angry and perhaps tipsy husband on the stairs, than it would be either to wait for him till he should make his way into his wife's room, or to hide away from him with the view of escaping altogether from so disagreeable an encounter. He had no fear of the man. He did not think that there would be any violence – nor, as regarded himself, did he much care if there was to be violence. But he felt that he was bound, as far as it might be possible, to screen the poor woman from the ill effects of her husband's temper and condition. He was, therefore, prepared to stop Broughton on the stairs, and to use some force in arresting him on his way, should he find the man to be really intoxicated. But he had not descended above a stair or two before he was aware that the man below him, whose
step had been heard in the hall, was not intoxicated, and that he was not Dobbs Broughton. It was Mr Musselboro.

‘It is you, is it?' said Conway. ‘I thought it was Broughton.' Then he looked into the man's face and saw that he was ashy pale. All that appearance of low-bred jauntiness which used to belong to him seemed to have been washed out of him. His hair had forgotten to curl, his gloves had been thrown aside, and even his trinkets were out of sight. ‘What has happened?' said Conway. ‘What is the matter? Something is wrong.' Then it occurred to him that Musselboro had been sent to the house to tell the wife of the husband's ruin.

‘The servant told me that I should find you upstairs,' said Musselboro.

‘Yes; I have been painting here. For some time past I have been doing a picture of Miss Van Siever. Mrs Van Siever has been here today.' Conway thought that this information would produce some strong effect on Clara's proposed husband; but he did not seem to regard the matter of the picture nor the mention of Miss Van Siever's name.

‘She knows nothing of it?' said he. ‘She doesn't know yet?'

‘Know what?' asked Conway. ‘She knows that her husband has lost money.'

‘Dobbs has – destroyed himself.'

‘What!'

‘Blew his brains out this morning just inside the entrance at Hook Court. The horror of drink was on him, and he stood just in the pathway and shot himself. Bangles was standing at the top of their vaults and saw him do it. I don't think Bangles will ever be a man again. Oh lord! I shall never get over it myself. The body was there when I went in.' Then Musselboro sank back against the wall of the staircase, and stared at Dalrymple as though he still saw before him the terrible sight of which he had just spoken.

Dalrymple seated himself on the stairs and strove to bring his mind to bear on the tale which he had just heard. What was he to do, and how was that poor woman upstairs to be informed? ‘You came here intending to tell her,' he said in a whisper. He feared every moment that Mrs Broughton would appear on the stairs, and learn from a
word or two what had happened without any hint to prepare her for the catastrophe.

‘I thought you would be here. I knew you were doing the picture. He knew it. He'd had a letter to say so – one of those anonymous ones.'

‘But that didn't influence him?'

‘I don't think it was that,' said Musselboro. ‘He meant to have had it out with her; but it wasn't that as brought this about. Perhaps you didn't know that he was clean ruined?'

‘She had told me.'

‘Then she knew it?'

‘Oh, yes; she knew that. Mrs Van Siever had told her. Poor creature! How are we to break this to her?'

‘You and she are very thick,' said Musselboro. ‘I suppose you'll do it best.' By this time they were in the drawing-room, and the door was closed. Dalrymple had put his hand on the other man's arm, and had led him downstairs, out of reach of hearing from the room above. ‘You'll tell her – won't you?' said Musselboro. Then Dalrymple tried to think what loving female friend there was who could break the news to the unfortunate woman. He knew of the Van Sievers, and he knew of the Demolines, and he almost knew that there was no other woman within reach whom he was entitled to regard as closely connected with Mrs Broughton. He was well aware that the anonymous letter of which Musselboro had just spoken had come from Miss Demolines, and he could not go there for sympathy and assistance. Nor could he apply to Mrs Van Siever after what had passed this morning. To Clara Van Siever he would have applied, but that it was impossible he should reach Clara except through her mother. ‘I suppose I had better go to her,' he said, after a while. And then he went, leaving Musselboro in the drawing-room. ‘I'm so bad with it,' said Musselboro, ‘that I really don't know how I shall ever go up that court again.'

Conway Dalrymple made his way up the stairs with very slow steps, and as he did so he could not but think seriously of the nature of his friendship with this woman, and could not but condemn himself heartily for the folly and iniquity of his own conduct. Scores of times
he had professed his love to her with half-expressed words, intended to mean nothing, as he said to himself when he tried to excuse himself, but enough to turn her head, even if they did not reach her heart. Now, this woman was a widow, and it came to be his duty to tell her that she was so. What if she should claim from him now the love which he had so often proffered to her! It was not that he feared that she would claim anything from him at this moment – neither now, nor tomorrow, nor the next day – but the agony of the present meeting would produce others in which there would be some tenderness mixed with the agony; and so from one meeting to another the thing would progress. Dalrymple knew well enough how such things might progress. But in this danger before him, it was not of himself that he was thinking, but of her. How could he assist her at such a time without doing her more injury than benefit? And, if he did not assist her, who would do so? He knew her to be heartless; but even heartless people have hearts which can be touched and almost broken by certain sorrows. Her heart would not be broken by her husband's death, but it would become very sore if she were utterly neglected. He was now at the door, with his hand on the lock, and was wondering why she should remain so long within without making herself heard. Then he opened it, and found her seated in a lounging-chair, with her back to the door, and he could see that she had a volume of a novel in her hand. He understood it all. She was pretending to be indifferent to her husband's return. He walked up to her, thinking that she would recognise his step; but she made no sign of turning towards him. He saw the motion of her hair over the back of the chair as she affected to make herself luxuriously comfortable. She was striving to let her husband see that she cared nothing for him, or for his condition, or for his jealousy, if he were jealous – or even his ruin. ‘Mrs Broughton,' he said, when he was close to her. Then she jumped up quickly, and turned round, facing him. ‘Where is Dobbs?' she said. ‘Where is Broughton?'