The tidings of what had been done by the magistrates at their petty sessions was communicated the same night to Grace Crawley by Miss Prettyman. Miss Anne Prettyman had heard the news within five minutes of the execution of the bail-bond, and had rushed to her sister with information as to the event. 'They have found him guilty; they have, indeed. They have convicted him--or whatever it is, because he couldn't say where he got it.' 'You do not mean that they have sent him to prison?' 'No;--not to prison; not as yet, that is. I don't understand it altogether; but he's to be tried again in the assizes. In the meantime he's to be out on bail. Major Grantly is to be the bail--and Mr Robarts.
That, I think, was very nice of him.' It was undoubtedly the fact that Miss Anne Prettyman had received an accession of pleasurable emotion when she learned that Mr Crawley had not been sent away scatheless, but had been condemned, as it were, to public trial at the assizes. And yet she would have done anything in her power to save Grace Crawley, or even to save her father. And it must be explained that Miss Anne Prettyman was supposed to be specially efficient in teaching Roman history to her pupils, although she was so manifestly ignorant of the course of the law in the country in which she lived. 'Committed him,' said Miss Prettyman, correcting her sister with scorn. 'They have not convicted him. Had they convicted him there would be no question of bail.' 'I don't know how that all is, Annabella, but at any rate Major Grantly is to be the bailsman, and there is to be another trial at Barchester.' 'There cannot be more than one trial in a criminal case,' said Miss Prettyman, 'unless the jury should disagree, or something of that kind. I suppose he has been committed and the trial will take place at the assizes.'
'Exactly--that's just it.' Had Lord Lufton appeared as lictor and had Thompson carried the fasces, Miss Anne would have known more about it.
The sad tidings were not told to Grace till the evening. Mrs Crawley, when the inquiry was over before the magistrates, would fain have had herself driven to the Miss Prettyman's school, that she might see her daughter; but she felt that to be impossible while her husband was in her charge. The father would of course have gone to his child, had the visit been suggested to him; but that would have caused another terrible scene; and the mother, considering it all in her mind, thought it better to abstain. Miss Prettyman did her best to make poor Grace think that the affair had so far gone favourably--did her best, that is, without saying anything which her conscience told her to be false. 'It is to be settled at the assizes in April,' she said.
'In the meantime what will become of papa?'
'Your papa will be at home, just as usual. He must have someone to advise him. I daresay it would have been all over now if he would have employed an attorney.'
'But it seems so hard that an attorney should be wanted.'
'My dear Grace, things in this world are hard.'
'But they are always harder for poor papa and mamma than for anybody else.' In answer to this Miss Prettyman made some remarks intended to be wise and kind at the same time. Grace, whose eyes were laden with tears, made no immediate reply to this, but reverted to her former statement that she must go home. 'I cannot remain, Miss Prettyman, I am so unhappy.'
'Will you be more happy at home?'
'I can bear it better there.'
The poor girl soon learned from the intended consolations of those around her, from the ill-considered kindness of the pupils, and from words which fell from the servants, that her father had in fact been judged to be guilty, as far as judgment had as yet gone. 'They do say, miss, it's only because he hadn't a lawyer,' said the house-keeper. And if men so kind as Lord Lufton and Mr Walker had made him out to be guilty, what could be expected from a stern judge down from London, who would know nothing about her poor father and his peculiarities, and from twelve jurymen who would be shopkeepers out of Barchester. It would kill her father, and then it would kill her mother; and after that it would kill her also. And there was no money in the house at home. She knew it well. She had been paid three pounds a month for her services at the school, and the money for the last two months had been sent to her mother. Yet, badly as she wanted anything that she might be able to earn, she knew that she could not go on teaching. It had come to be acknowledged by both the Miss Prettymans that any teaching on her part at the present was impossible. She would go home and perish with the rest of them. There was no room left for hope to her, or to any of her family. They had accused her father of being a common thief--her father whom she knew to be so nobly honest, her father whom she believed to be among the most devoted of God's servants. He was accused of a paltry theft, and the magistrates and lawyers and policemen among them had decided that the accusation was true! How could she look the girls in the face after that, or attempt to hold her own among the teachers!
On the next morning there came a letter from Miss Lily Dale, and with that in her hand she again went to Miss Prettyman. She must go home, she said. She must at any rate go to her mother. Could Miss Prettyman be kind enough to send her home. 'I haven't sixpence to pay for anything,' she said, bursting into tears; 'and I haven't a right to ask for it.'