“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 pocketbook 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 had no advantages.”
“He is not able even to pay his baker’s bill. I always thought 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 the archdeacon had married sisters, and there was much intimacy between the families.
“After all it is only a 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 dare say 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 also was 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 always was 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 also was 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 in 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 was fifty-nine? Think of what her bringing up has been. Think what it would be to have all the Crawleys in our house forever, 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 all 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
