第195章

'I shall stay till after the trial,' he said. 'If she will then go with me, well and good; but whether she will or not, I shall not remain here.' All this seemed to Mrs Grantly to be peculiarly unfortunate, for had he not resolved to go, things might even yet have righted themselves. From what she could now understand of the character of Miss Crawley, whom she did not know personally, she thought it probable that Grace, in the event of her father being found guilty by the jury, would absolutely and persistently refuse the offer made to her. She would be too good, as Mrs Grantly put it to herself, to bring misery and disgrace into another family. But should Mr Crawley be acquitted, and should the marriage then take place, the archdeacon himself might probably be got to forgive it. In either case there would be no necessity for breaking up the house at Cosby Lodge. But her dear son Henry, her best beloved, was obstinate and stiff-necked and would take no advice. 'He is even worse than his father,' she said, in her short-lived anger, to her own father to whom alone at this time she could unburden her griefs, seeking consolation and encouragement.

It was her habit to go over to the deanery at any rate twice a week at this time, and on the occasion of one of the visits so made, she expressed very strongly her distress at the family quarrel which had come among them. The old man took his grandson's part through and through. 'I do not at all see why he should not marry the young lady if he likes her. As for money, there ought to be enough without his having to look for a wife with a fortune.'

'It is not a question of money, papa.'

'And as to rank,' continued Mr Harding, 'Henry will not at any rate be going lower than his father did when he married you;--not so low indeed, for at that time I was only a minor canon, and Mr Crawley is in possession of a benefice.'

'Papa, all this is nonsense. It is indeed.'

'Very likely, my dear.'

'It is not because Mr Crawley is only perpetual curate of Hogglestock that the archdeacon objects to the marriage. It has nothing to do with that at all. At the present moment he is in disgrace.'

'Under a cloud, my dear. Let us pray that it may only be a passing cloud.'

'All the world thinks that he is guilty. And then he is such a man;--so singular, so unlike anybody else! You know, papa, that I don't think very much of money, merely as money.'

'I hope not, my dear. Money is worth thinking of, but it is not worth very much thought.'

'But it does give advantages, and the absence of advantages must be very much felt in the education of a girl. You would hardly wish Henry to marry a young woman who, from the want of money, had not been brought up among ladies. It is not Miss Crawley's fault, but such has been her lot.

We cannot ignore these deficiencies, papa.'

'Certainly not, my dear.'

'You would not, for instance, wish that Henry should marry a kitchen-maid.'

'But is Miss Crawley a kitchen-maid, Susan?'

'I don't quite say that.'

'I am told that she has been educated infinitely more than most of the young ladies in the neighbourhood,' said Mr Harding.

'You know what I mean, papa. But the fact is, that it is impossible to deal with men. They will never be reasonable. A marriage such as this would be injurious to Henry; but it will not be ruinous; and as to disinheriting him for it, that would be downright wicked.'

'I think so,' said Mr Harding.

'But the archdeacon will look at it as though it would destroy Henry and Edith together, while you speak of it as though it were the best thing in the world.'

'If the young people love each other, I think it would be the best thing in the world,' said Mr Harding.

'But, papa, you cannot but think that his father's wish should go for something,' said Mrs Grantly, who, desirous as she was on the one side to support her son, could not bear that her husband should, on the other side, be declared to be altogether in the wrong.

'I do not know, my dear,' said Mr Harding; 'but I do think that if the two young people are fond of each other, and if there is anything for them to live upon, it cannot be right to keep them apart. You know, my dear, she is the daughter of a gentleman.' Mrs Grantly upon this left her father almost brusquely, without speaking another word on the subject; for though was opposed to the vehement anger of her husband, she could not endure the proposition now made by her father.

Mr Harding was at this time living all alone in the deanery. For some few years the deanery had been his home, and as his youngest daughter was the dean's wife, there could no more comfortable resting-place for the evening of his life. During the last month or two the days had gone tediously long with him; for he had had the large house all to himself, and he was a man who did not love solitude. It is hard to conceive that the old, whose thoughts have been all thought out, should ever love to live alone. Solitude is surely for the young, who have time before them for the execution of schemes, and who can, therefore, take delight in thinking. In these days the poor old man would wander about the rooms, shambling from one chamber to another, and would feel ashamed when the servants met him ever on the move. He would make little apologies for his uneasiness, which they would accept graciously, understanding, after a fashion, why it was that he was uneasy. 'He ain't got nothing to do,' said the housemaid to the cook 'and as for reading, they say that some of the young ones can read all day sometimes, and all night too; but bless you, when you're nigh eighty, reading don't go for much.' The housemaid was right as to Mr Harding's reading. He was not one who had read so much in his earlier days as to enable him to make reading go far with him now that he was near eighty. So he wandered about the room, and sat here for a few minutes, and there for a few minutes, and though he did not sleep much, he made the hours of the night as many as possible.