The dinner-party at the rectory comprised none but the Grantly family.
The marchioness had written to say that she preferred to have it so. The father had suggested that the Thornes of Ullathorne, very old friends, might be asked, and the Greshams of Boxall Hill, and had even promised to endeavour to get old Lady Lufton over to the rectory, Lady Lufton having in former years been Griselda's warm friend. But Lady Hartletop had preferred to see her dear mother and father in privacy. Her brother Henry she would be glad to meet, and hoped to make some arrangement with him for a short visit to Hartlebury, her husband's place in Shropshire--as to which latter hint, it may, however, be at once said that nothing further was spoken after the Crawley alliance had been suggested. And there had been a very sore point mooted by the daughter in a request made to her father that she might not be called upon to meet her grandfather, her mother's father. Mr Harding, a clergyman of Barchester, who was now stricken in years.--'Papa would not have come,' said Mrs Grantly, 'but I think, I do think--' Then she stopped herself.
'Your father has odd ways sometimes, my dear. You know how fond I am of having him here myself.'
'It does not signify,' said Mrs Grantly. 'Do not let us say anything more about it. Of course we cannot have everything. I am told the child does her duty in her sphere of life, and I suppose we ought to be contented.' Then Mrs Grantly went up to her own room, and there she cried. Nothing was said to the major on the unpleasant subject of the Crawleys before dinner. He met his sister in the drawing-room, and was allowed to kiss her noble cheek. 'I hope Edith is well, Henry,' said the sister. 'Quite well; and little Dumbello is the same, I hope?' 'Thank you, yes; quite well.' The major never made inquiries after the august family, or would allow it to appear that he was conscious of being shone upon by the wife of a marquis. Any adulation which Griselda received of that kind came from her father, and therefore, unconsciously she had learned to think that her father was more better bred than the other members of her family, and more fitted by nature to move in that sacred circle to which she herself had been exalted. We need not dwell upon the dinner, which was but a dull affair. Mrs Grantly strove to carry on the family party exactly as it would have been carried on had her daughter married the son of some neighbouring squire; but she herself was conscious of the struggle, and the fact of there being a struggle produced failure. The rector's servants treated the daughter of the house with special awe, and the marchioness herself moved, and spoke, and ate, and drank with a cold magnificence, which I think had become a second nature with her, but which was not on that account the less oppressive. Even the archdeacon, who enjoyed something in that which was so disagreeable to his wife, felt a relief when he was left alone after dinner with his son. He felt relieved as his son got up to open the door for his mother and sister, but was aware at the same time that he had before him a most difficult and possibly a most disastrous task. His dear son Henry was not a man to be talked smoothly out of, or into, any propriety. He had a will of his own, and having hitherto been a successful man, who in youth had fallen into few youthful troubles--who had never justified his father in using stern parental authority--was not now inclined to bend his neck. 'Henry,' said the archdeacon, 'what are you drinking? That's '34 port, but it's not just what it should be.
Shall I send for another bottle?'
'It will do for me, sir. I shall only take a glass.'
'I shall drink two or three glasses of claret. But you young fellows have become so desperately temperate.'
'We take our wine at dinner, sir.'
'By-the-by, how well Griselda is looking.'
'Yes, she is. It's always easy for women to look well when they're rich.' How would Grace Crawley look, then, who was poor as poverty itself, and who would remain poor, if his son was fool enough to marry her? That was the train of thought which ran through the archdeacon's mind. 'I do not think much of riches,' said he, 'but it is always well that a gentleman's wife or a gentleman's daughter should have a sufficiency to maintain her position in life.'
'You may say the same, sir, of everybody's wife and everybody's daughter.'
'You know what I mean, Henry.'
'I am not quite sure that I do, sir.'
'Perhaps I had better speak out at once. A rumour has reached your mother and me, which we don't believe for a moment, but which, nevertheless, makes us unhappy even as a report. They say that there is a young woman living in Silverbridge to whom you are becoming attached.'
'Is there any reason why I should not become attached to a young woman in Silverbridge?--though I hope any young woman to whom I may become attached will be worthy at any rate of being called a young lady.'
'I hope so, Henry; I hope so. I do hope so.'
The archdeacon looked across at his son's face, and his heart sank within him. His son's voice and his son's eyes seemed to tell him two things. They seemed to tell him, firstly, that the rumour about Grace Crawley was true; and, secondly, that the major was resolved not to be talked out of his folly. 'But you are not engaged to anyone, are you?' said the archdeacon. The son did not at first make any answer, and then the father repeated the question. 'Considering our mutual positions, Henry, I think you ought to tell me if you are engaged.'
'I am not engaged. Had I become so, I should have taken the first opportunity of telling you or my mother.'