第160章

'Dear papa, you are tired. Will you not try to sleep?'

'Tell Mrs Proudie what I say; and as for Arabin's money, I took it. Iknow I took it. What would you have me do? Shall I--see them--all starve?' Then he fell back upon his bed and did sleep.

The next day he was better, and insisted upon getting out of bed, and on sitting in his old arm-chair over the fire. And the Greek books were again had out; and Grace, not at all unwillingly, was put through her facings. 'If you don't take care, my dear,' he said, 'Jane will beat you yet. She understands the force of the verbs better than you do.'

'I am very glad that she is doing so well, papa. I am sure I shall not begrudge her her superiority.'

'Ah, but you should begrudge it her!' Jane was sitting by at the time, and the two sisters were holding each other By the hand. 'Always to be the best;--always to be in advance of others. That should be your motto.'

'But we can't both be best, papa,' said Jane.

'You can both strive to be best. But Grace has the better voice. Iremember when I knew the whole of the "Antigone" by heart. You girls should see which can learn it first.'

'It would take such a long time,' said Jane.

'You are wrong, and what can you do better with your leisure hours? Fie, Jane! I did not expect it from you. When I was learning it I had eight or nine pupils, and read an hour a day with each of them. But I think that nobody works now as they used to work then. Where is your mamma?

Tell her I think I could get out as far as Mrs Cox's, if she would help me dress.' Soon after this he was in bed again, and his head was wandering; but still they knew that he was better than he had been.

'You are more of a comfort to your papa than I can be,' said Mrs Crawley to her eldest daughter that night as they sat together, when everybody else was in bed.

'Do not say that, mamma. Papa does not think so.'

'I cannot read Greek plays to him as you can do. I can only nurse him in his illness and endeavour to do my duty. Do you know, Grace, that it I am beginning to fear that he half doubts me?'

'Oh, mamma!'

'That he half doubts me, and is half afraid of me. He does not think as he used to do, that I am altogether, heart and soul, on his side. I can see it in his eyes as he watches me. He thinks that I am tired of him--tired of his sufferings, tired of his poverty, tired of the evil which men say of him. I am not sure but what he thinks that I suspect him.'

'Of what, mamma?'

'Of general unfitness for the work he has to do. The feeling is not strong as yet, but I fear that he will teach himself to think that he has an enemy at his hearth--not a friend. It will be the saddest mistake he ever made.'

'He told me today that you were the best of women. Those were his very words.'

'Were they, my dear? I am glad at least that he should say so to you.

He has been better since you came;--a great deal better. For one day Iwas frightened; but I am very sorry now that I sent for you.'

'I am so glad, mamma; so very glad.'

'You were happy there--and comfortable. And if they were glad to have you, why should I have brought you away?'

'But I was not happy;--even though they were very good to me. How could I be happy there when I was thinking of you and papa and Jane here at home? Whatever there is her, I would sooner share it with you than be anywhere else--while this trouble lasts.'

'My darling!--it is a great comfort to see you again.'

'Only that I knew that one less in the house would be a saving to you Ishould not have gone. When there is unhappiness, people should stay together;--shouldn't they, mamma?' They were sitting quite close to each other, on an old sofa in a small upstairs room, from which a door opened into the larger chamber in which Mr Crawley was lying. It had been arranged between them that on this night Mrs Crawley should remain with her husband, and that Grace should go to bed. It was now past one o'clock, but she was still there, clinging to her mother's side, with her mother's arm drawn round her. 'Mamma,' she said, when they had both been silent for some ten minutes. 'I have got something to tell you.'

'Tonight?'

'Yes, mamma; tonight, if you will let me.'

'But you promised that you would go to bed. You were up all last night.'

'I am not sleepy, mamma.'

'Of course you shall tell me what you please, dearest. Is it a secret?

Is it something I am not to repeat?'

'You must say how that ought to be, mamma. I shall not tell it to anyone else.'

'Well, dear?'

'Sit comfortably, mamma;--there; like that, and let me have your hand.

It's a terrible story to have to tell.'

'A terrible story, Grace?'

'I mean that you must not draw away from me. I shall want to feel that you are quite close to me. Mamma, while I was at Allington, Major Grantly came there?'

'Did he, my dear?'

'Yes, mamma.'

'Did he know them before?'