The Last Chronicle of Barset Part 71

"Always to be 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. I remember 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 young, and what can you do better with your leisure hours?

Fie, Jane! I did not expect that 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 n.o.body works now as they used to work then. Where is your mamma? Tell her I think I could get out as far as Mrs. c.o.x's, if she would help me to 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 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 eye 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 to-day 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 I was frightened; but I am 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 here, 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 I should 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 her 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."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Mamma, I've got something to tell you."]

"To-night?"

"Yes, mamma; to-night, 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 any one 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?"

"No, mamma; not at the Small House. But he came there--to see me. He asked me--to be his wife. Don't move, mamma."

"My darling child! I won't move, dearest. Well; and what did you say to him? G.o.d bless him, at any rate. May G.o.d bless him, because he has seen with a true eye, and felt with a n.o.ble instinct. It is something, Grace, to have been wooed by such a man at such a time."

"Mamma, it did make me feel proud; it did."

"You had known him well before,--of course? I knew that you and he were friends, Grace."

"Yes, we were friends. I always liked him. I used not to know what to think about him. Miss Anne Prettyman told me that it would be so; and once before I thought so myself."

"And had you made up your mind what to say to him?"

"Yes, I had then. But I did not say it."

"Did not say what you had made up your mind to say?"

"That was before all this had happened to papa."

"I understand you, dearest."

"When Miss Anne Prettyman told me that I should be ready with my answer, and when I saw that Miss Prettyman herself used to let him come to the house and seemed to wish that I should see him when he came, and when he once was--so very gentle and kind, and when he said that he wanted me to love Edith,-- Oh, mamma!"

"Yes, darling, I know. Of course you loved him."

"Yes, mamma. And I do love him. How could one not love him?"

"I love him,--for loving you."