Major Grantly was as intimately acquainted with Miss Anne Prettyman as a man under thirty may well be with a lady nearer fifty than forty, who is not specially connected with him by any family tie; but of Miss Prettyman he knew personally very much less. Miss Prettyman, as has before been said, did not go out, and was therefore not common to the eyes of the Silverbridgians. She did occasionally see her friends in her own house, and Grace Crawley's lover, as the major had come to be called, had been there on more than one occasion; but of real personal intimacy between them there had hitherto existed none. He might have spoken, perhaps a dozen words to her in his life. He had now more than a dozen to speak to her, but he hardly knew how to commence them.
She had got up and curtseyed, and had then taken his hand and asked him to sit down. 'My sister tells me that you want to see me,' she said in her softest, mildest voice.
'I do, Miss Prettyman. I want to speak to you about a matter that troubles me very much--very much indeed.'
'Anything that I can do, Major Grantly--'
'Thank you, yes. I know that you are very good, or I should not have ventured to come and see you. Indeed I shouldn't trouble you now, of course, if it was only about myself. I know very well what a great friend you are to Miss Crawley.'
'Yes, I am. We love Grace dearly here.'
'So do I,' said the major bluntly; 'I love her dearly, too.' Then he paused, as though he thought that Miss Prettyman ought to take up the speech. But Miss Prettyman seemed to think quite differently, and he was obliged to go on. 'I don't know whether you have ever heard about it or noticed it, or--or--or--' He felt that he was very awkward, and he blushed. Major as he was, he blushed as he sat before the woman, trying to tell his story, but not knowing how to tell it. 'The truth is, Miss Prettyman, I have done all but ask her to be my wife, and now has come this terrible affair about her father.'
'It is a terrible affair, Major Grantly; very terrible.'
'By Jove, you may say that!'
'Of course, Mr Crawley is as innocent in the matter as you or I are.'
'You think so, Miss Prettyman?'
'Think so! I feel sure of it. What; a clergyman of the Church of England, a pious, hard-working country gentleman, whom we have known among us by his good works for years, suddenly turn thief, and pilfer a few pounds! It is not possible, Major Grantly. And the father of such a daughter, too! It is not possible. It may do for men of business to think so, lawyers and such like, who are obliged to think in accordance with the evidence, as they call it; but to my mind the idea is monstrous. I don't know how he got it, and I don't care; but I'm quite sure he did not steal it. Whoever heard of anybody becoming so base as that all at once?'
The major was startled by her eloquence, and by the indignant tone of voice in which it was expressed. It seemed to tell him that she would give him no sympathy in that which he had come to say to her, and to upbraid him already in that he was not prepared to do the magnificent thing of which he had thought when he had been building his castles in the air. Why should he not do the magnificent thing? Miss Prettyman's eloquence was so strong that it half convinced him that the Barchester Club and Mr Walker had come to a wrong conclusion after all.
'And how does Miss Crawley bear it?' he asked, desirous of postponing for a while any declaration of his own purpose.
'She is very unhappy, of course. Not that she thinks evil of her father.'
'Of course she does not think him guilty.'
'Nobody thinks him so in this house, Major Grantly,' said the little woman, very imperiously. 'But Grace is, naturally enough, very sad;--very sad indeed. I do not think I can ask you to see her today.'
'I was not thinking of it,' said the major.
'Poor, dear girl! It is a great trial for her. Do you wish me to give her any message, Major Grantly?'
The moment had now come in which he must say that which he had come to say. The little woman waited for an answer, and as he was there, within her power as it were, he must speak. I fear that what he said will not be approved by any strong-minded person. I fear that our lover will henceforth be considered by such a one as being a weak, wishy-washy man, who had hardly any mind of his own to speak of--that he was a man of no account, as the poor people say. 'Miss Prettyman, what message ought Ito give her?'
'Nay, Major Grantly, how can I tell you that? How can I put words into your mouth?'
'It isn't the words,' he said; 'but the feelings.'
'And how can I tell the feelings in your heart?'
'Oh, as for that, I know what my feelings are. I do love her with all my heart;--I do, indeed. A fortnight ago I was only thinking whether she would accept me, and whether she would mind having Edith to take care of.'
'She is very fond of Edith--very fond indeed.'
'Is she?' said the major, more distracted than ever. Why should he not do the magnificent thing after all? 'But it is a great charge for a girl when she marries.'
'It is a great charge--a very great charge. It is for you to think whether you should entrust so great a charge to one so young.'
'I have no fear about that at all.'
'Nor should I have any--as you ask me. We have known Grace well, thoroughly, and are quite sure that she will do her duty in that state of life to which it may please God to call her.'
The major was aware when this was said to him that he had not come to Miss Prettyman for a character of the girl he loved; and yet he was not angry at receiving it. He was neither angry, nor even indifferent. He accepted the character most gratefully, though he felt that he was being led away from his purpose. He consoled himself for this however, by remembering that the path which Miss Prettyman was now leading him, led to the magnificent, and to those pleasant castles in the air which he had been building as he walked into Silverbridge. 'I am quite sure that she is all that you say,' he replied. 'Indeed I had made up my mind about that long ago.'
'And what can I do for you, Major Grantly?'
'You think that I ought not to see her?'