Dr Thorne

CHAPTER XVI

MISS DUN­STA­BLE

At last the great Miss Dun­sta­ble came. Frank, when he heard that the heiress had ar­rived, felt some slight pal­pi­ta­tion at his heart. He had not the re­motest idea in the world of mar­ry­ing her; in­deed, dur­ing the last week past, ab­sence had so height­ened his love for Mary Thorne that he was more than ev­er re­solved that he would nev­er mar­ry any one but her. He knew that he had made her a for­mal of­fer for her hand, and that it be­hoved him to keep to it, let the charms of Miss Dun­sta­ble be what they might; but, nev­er­the­less, he was pre­pared to go through a cer­tain amount of courtship, in obe­di­ence to his aunt’s be­hests, and he felt a lit­tle ner­vous at be­ing brought up in that way, face to face, to do bat­tle with two hun­dred thou­sand pounds.

‘Miss Dun­sta­ble has ar­rived,’ said his aunt to him, with great com­pla­cen­cy, on his re­turn from an elec­tion­eer­ing vis­it to the beau­ties of Barch­ester which he made with his cousin George on the day af­ter the con­ver­sa­tion which was re­peat­ed at the end of the last chap­ter. ‘She has ar­rived, and is look­ing re­mark­ably well; she has quite a dis­tingue air, and will grace any cir­cle to which she may be in­tro­duced. I will in­tro­duce you be­fore din­ner, and you can take her out.’

‘I couldn’t pro­pose to her tonight, I sup­pose?’ said Frank, ma­li­cious­ly.

‘Don’t talk non­sense, Frank,’ said the count­ess an­gri­ly. ‘I am do­ing what I can for you, and tak­ing on an in­fin­ity of trou­ble to en­deav­our to place you in an in­de­pen­dent po­si­tion; and now you talk non­sense to me.’

Frank mut­tered some sort of apol­ogy, and then went to pre­pare him­self for the en­counter.

Miss Dun­sta­ble, though she had come by train, had brought with her her own car­riage, her own hors­es, her own coach­man and foot­man, and her own maid, of course. She had al­so brought with her half a score of trunks, full of wear­ing ap­par­el; some of them near­ly as rich as that won­der­ful box which was stolen a short time since from the top of a cab. But she brought these things, not in the least be­cause she want­ed them her­self, but be­cause she had been in­struct­ed to do so.

Frank was a lit­tle more than or­di­nar­ily care­ful in dress­ing. He spoilt a cou­ple of white neck­ties be­fore he was sat­is­fied, and was rather fas­tid­ious as the set of his hair. There was not much of the dandy about him in the or­di­nary mean­ing of the word. But he felt that it was in­cum­bent on him to look his best, see­ing what it was ex­pect­ed he should now do. He cer­tain­ly did not mean to mar­ry Miss Dun­sta­ble; but as he was to have a flir­ta­tion with her, it was well that he should do so un­der the best pos­si­ble aus­pices.

When he en­tered the draw­ing-​room he per­ceived at once that the la­dy was there. She was seat­ed be­tween the count­ess and Mrs Proudie; and mam­mon, in her per­son, was re­ceiv­ing wor­ship from the tem­po­ral­ities and spir­itu­al­ities of the land. He tried to look un­con­cerned, and re­mained in the far­ther part of the room, talk­ing with some of his cousins; but he could not keep his eye off the fu­ture pos­si­ble Mrs Frank Gre­sham; and it seemed as though she was as much con­strained to scru­ti­nize him as he felt to scru­ti­nize her.

La­dy de Cour­cy had de­clared that she was look­ing ex­treme­ly well, and had par­tic­ular­ly al­lud­ed to her dis­tingue ap­pear­ance. Frank at once felt that he could not al­to­geth­er go along with his aunt in this opin­ion. Miss Dun­sta­ble might be very well; but her style of beau­ty was one which did not quite meet with his warmest ad­mi­ra­tion.

In age she was about thir­ty; but Frank, who was no great judge in these mat­ters, and who was ac­cus­tomed to have very young girls round him, at once put her down as be­ing ten years old­er. She had a very high colour, very red cheeks, a large mouth, big white teeth, a broad nose, and bright, small, black eyes. Her hair al­so was black and bright, but very crisp, and strong, and was combed close round her face in small crisp black ringlets. Since she had been brought out in­to the fash­ion­able world some of her in­struc­tors in fash­ion had giv­en her to un­der­stand that curls were not the thing. ‘They’ll al­ways pass muster,’ Miss Dun­sta­ble had replied, ‘when they are done up with bank-​notes.’ It may there­fore be pre­sumed that Miss Dun­sta­ble had a will of her own.

‘Frank,’ said the count­ess, in the most nat­ural and un­premed­itat­ed way, as soon as she caught her nephew’s eye, ‘come here. I want to in­tro­duce you to Miss Dun­sta­ble.’ The in­tro­duc­tion was then made. ‘Mrs Proudie, would you ex­cuse me? I must pos­itive­ly go and say a few words to Mrs Bar­low, or the poor wom­an will feel her­self huffed’; and so say­ing, she moved off, leav­ing the coast clear for Mas­ter Frank.

He of course slipped in­to his aunt’s place, and ex­pressed a hope that Miss Dun­sta­ble was not fa­tigued by her jour­ney.

‘Fa­tigued!’ said she, in a voice rather loud, but very good-​hu­moured, and not al­to­geth­er un­pleas­ing; ‘I am not to be fa­tigued by such a thing as that. Why, in May we came through all the way from Rome to Paris with­out sleep­ing–that is, with­out sleep­ing in a bed–and we were up­set three times out of the sledges com­ing over the Sim­plon. It was such fun! Why, I wasn’t to say tired even then.’

‘All the way from Rome to Paris!’ said Mrs Proudie–in a tone of as­ton­ish­ment, meant to flat­ter the heiress–’and what made you in such a hur­ry?’

‘Some­thing about mon­ey mat­ters,’ said Miss Dun­sta­ble, speak­ing rather loud­er than usu­al. ‘Some­thing to do with the oint­ment. I was sell­ing the busi­ness just then.’

Mrs Proudie bowed, and im­me­di­ate­ly changed the con­ver­sa­tion. ‘Idol­atry is, I be­lieve, more ram­pant than ev­er in Rome,’ said she; ‘and I fear there is no such thing at all as Sab­bath ob­ser­vance.’

‘Oh, not in the least,’ said Miss Dun­sta­ble, with rather a joy­ous air; ‘Sun­days and week-​days are all the same there.’

‘How very fright­ful!’ said Mrs Proudie.

‘But it’s a de­li­cious place. I do like Rome, I must say. And as for the Pope, if he wasn’t quite so fat he would be the nicest old fel­low in the world. Have you been in Rome, Mrs Proudie?’

Mrs Proudie sighed as she replied in the neg­ative, and de­clared her be­lief that dan­ger was ap­pre­hend­ed from such vis­its.

‘Oh!–ah!–the malar­ia–of course–yes; if you go at the wrong time; but no­body is such a fool as that now.’

‘I was think­ing of the soul, Miss Dun­sta­ble,’ said the la­dy-​bish­op, in her pe­cu­liar grave tone. ‘A place where there are no Sab­bath ob­ser­vances–’

‘And have you been at Rome, Mr Gre­sham?’ said the young la­dy, turn­ing al­most abrupt­ly round to Frank, and giv­ing a some­what un­civil­ly cold shoul­der to Mrs Proudie’s ex­hor­ta­tion. She, poor la­dy, was forced to fin­ish her speech to the Hon­ourable George, who was stand­ing near to her. He hav­ing an idea that bish­ops and all their be­long­ings, like oth­er things ap­per­tain­ing to re­li­gion, should, if pos­si­ble, be avoid­ed; but if that were not pos­si­ble, should be treat­ed with much as­sumed grav­ity, im­me­di­ate­ly put on a long face, and re­marked that–’it was a deuced shame: for his part he al­ways liked to see peo­ple go qui­et on Sun­days. The par­sons had on­ly one day out of sev­en, and he thought they were ful­ly en­ti­tled to that.’ Sat­is­fied with which, or not sat­is­fied, Mrs Proudie had to re­main silent till din­ner-​time.

‘No,’ said Frank; ‘I nev­er was in Rome. I was in Paris once, that’s all.’ And then, feel­ing not un­nat­ural anx­iety as to the present state of Miss Dun­sta­ble’s world­ly con­cerns, he took an op­por­tu­ni­ty of falling back on that part of her con­ver­sa­tion which Mrs Proudie had ex­er­cised so much tact in avoid­ing.

‘And was it sold?’ said he.

‘Sold! what sold?’

‘You were say­ing about the busi­ness–that you came back with­out go­ing to bed be­cause of sell­ing the busi­ness.’

‘Oh!–the oint­ment. No; it was not sold. Af­ter all, the af­fair did not come off, and I might have re­mained and had an­oth­er roll in the snow. Wasn’t it a pity?’

‘So,’ said Frank to him­self, ‘if I should do it, I should be own­er of the oint­ment of Lebanon: how odd!’ And then he gave her his arm and hand­ed her down to din­ner.

He cer­tain­ly found that his din­ner was less dull than any oth­er he had sat down to at Cour­cy Cas­tle. He did not fan­cy that he should ev­er fall in love with Miss Dun­sta­ble; but she cer­tain­ly was an agree­able com­pan­ion. She told him of her tour, and the fun she had in her jour­neys; how she took a physi­cian with her for the ben­efit of her health, whom she gen­er­al­ly was forced to nurse; of the trou­ble it was to her to look af­ter and wait up­on her nu­mer­ous ser­vants; of the tricks she played to bam­boo­zle peo­ple who came to stare at her; and, last­ly, she told him of a lover who fol­lowed her from coun­try to coun­try, and was now in hot pur­suit of her, hav­ing ar­rived in Lon­don the evening be­fore she left.

‘A lover?’ said Frank, some­what star­tled by the sud­den­ness of the con­fi­dence.

‘A lover–yes–Mr Gre­sham; why should I not have a lover?’

‘Oh!–no–of course not. I dare say you have had a good many.’

‘On­ly three or four, up­on my word; that is, on­ly three or four that I favour. One is not bound to reck­on the oth­ers, you know.’

‘No, they’d be too nu­mer­ous. And so you have three whom you favour, Miss Dun­sta­ble;’ and Frank sighed, as though he in­tend­ed to say that the num­ber was too many for his peace of mind.

‘Is not that quite enough? But of course I change them some­times;’ and she smiled on him very good-​na­tured­ly. ‘It would be very dull if I were al­ways to keep the same.’

‘Very dull in­deed,’ said Frank, who did not quite know what to say.

‘Do you think the count­ess would mind my hav­ing or two of them here if I were to ask her?’

‘I am quite sure she would,’ said Frank, very briskly. ‘She would not ap­prove of it; nor should I.’

‘You–why, what have you to do with it?’

‘A great deal–so much so that I pos­itive­ly for­bid it; but, Miss Dun­sta­ble–’

‘Well, Mr Gre­sham?’

‘We will con­trive to make up for the de­fi­cien­cy as well as pos­si­ble, if you will per­mit us to do so. Now for my­self–’

‘Well, for your­self?’

At this mo­ment the count­ess gleamed her ac­com­plished eye round the ta­ble, and Miss Dun­sta­ble rose from her chair as Frank was prepar­ing his at­tack, and ac­com­pa­nied the oth­er ladies in­to the draw­ing-​room.

His aunt, as she passed him, touched his arm light­ly with her fan, so light­ly that the ac­tion was per­ceived by no one else. But Frank well un­der­stood the mean­ing of the touch, and ap­pre­ci­at­ed the ap­pro­ba­tion which it con­veyed. He mere­ly blushed how­ev­er at his own dis­sim­ula­tion; for he felt more cer­tain that ev­er that he would nev­er mar­ry Miss Dun­sta­ble, and he felt near­ly equal­ly sure that Miss Dun­sta­ble would nev­er mar­ry him.

Lord de Cour­cy was now at home; but his pres­ence did not add much hi­lar­ity to the claret-​cup. The young men, how­ev­er, were very keen about the elec­tion, and Mr Nearthewinde, who was one of the par­ty, was full of the most san­guine hopes.

‘I have done a good one at any rate,’ said Frank; ‘I have se­cured the cho­ris­ter’s vote.’

‘What! Bagley?’ said Neathewinde. ‘The fel­low kept out of my way, and I couldn’t see him.’

‘I haven’t ex­act­ly seen him,’ said Frank; ‘but I’ve got his vote all the same.’

‘What! by a let­ter?’ said Mr Mof­fat.

‘No, not by let­ter,’ said Frank, speak­ing rather low as he looked at the bish­op and the earl; ‘I got a promise from his wife: I think he’s a lit­tle in the hen­pecked line.’

‘Ha–ha–ha!’ laughed the good bish­op, who, in spite of Frank’s mod­ula­tion of voice, had over­heard what had passed. ‘Is that the way you man­age elec­tion­eer­ing mat­ters in our cathe­dral city?’ The idea of one of his cho­ris­ters be­ing in the hen­pecked line was very amus­ing to the bish­op.

‘Oh, I got a dis­tinct promise,’ said Frank, in his pride; and then added in­cau­tious­ly, ‘but I had to or­der bon­nets for the whole fam­ily.’

‘Hush-​h-​h-​h!’ said Mr Nearthewinde, ab­so­lute­ly flab­ber­gast­ed by such im­pru­dence on the part of one of his client’s friends. ‘I am quite sure that you or­der had no ef­fect, and was in­tend­ed to have no ef­fect on Mr Bagley’s vote.’

‘Is that wrong?’ said Frank; ‘up­on my word I thought it was quite le­git­imate.’

‘One should nev­er ad­mit any­thing in elec­tion­eer­ing mat­ters, should one?’ said George, turn­ing to Mr Nearthewinde.

‘Very lit­tle, Mr de Cour­cy; very lit­tle in­deed–the less the bet­ter. It’s hard to say in these days what is wrong and what is not. Now, there’s Red­dy­palm, the pub­li­can, the man who has the Brown Bear. Well, I was there, of course: he’s a vot­er, and if any man in Barch­ester ought to feel him­self bound to vote for a friend of the duke’s he ought. Now, I was so thirsty when I was in that man’s house, that I was dy­ing for a glass of beer; but for the life of me I didn’t dare or­der one.’

‘Why not?’ said Frank, whose mind was on­ly just be­gin­ning to be en­light­ened by the great doc­trine of pu­ri­ty of elec­tion as prac­tised in En­glish provin­cial towns.

‘Oh, Closer­stil had some fel­low look­ing at me; why, I can’t walk down that town with­out hav­ing my very steps count­ed. I like sharp fight­ing my­self, but I nev­er go so sharp as that.’

‘Nev­er­the­less I got Bagley’s vote,’ said Frank, per­sist­ing in praise of his own elec­tion­eer­ing prowess; ‘and you may be sure of this, Mr Nearthewinde, none of Closer­stil’s men were look­ing at me when I got it.’

‘Who’ll pay for the bon­nets, Frank?’ said George.

‘Oh, I’ll pay for them if Mof­fat won’t. I think I shall keep an ac­count there; they seem to have good gloves and those sort of things.’

‘Very good, I have no doubt,’ said George.

‘I sup­pose your lord­ship will be in town soon af­ter the meet­ing of Par­lia­ment?’ said the bish­op, ques­tion­ing the earl.

‘Oh! yes; I sup­pose I must be there. I am nev­er al­lowed to re­main very long in the qui­et. It is a great nui­sance; but it is too late to think of that now.’

‘Men in high places, my lord, nev­er were, and nev­er will be, al­lowed to con­sid­er them­selves. They burn their torch­es not in their own be­half,’ said the bish­op, think­ing, per­haps, as much of him­self as he did of his no­ble friend. ‘Rest and qui­et are the com­forts of those who have been con­tent to re­main in ob­scu­ri­ty.’

‘Per­haps so,’ said the earl, fin­ish­ing his glass of claret with an air of vir­tu­ous res­ig­na­tion. ‘Per­haps so.’ His own mar­tyr­dom, how­ev­er, had not been se­vere, for the rest and qui­et of home had nev­er been pe­cu­liar­ly sat­is­fac­to­ry to his tastes. Soon af­ter this they went to the ladies.

It was some lit­tle time be­fore Frank could find an op­por­tu­ni­ty of recom­menc­ing his al­lot­ted task with Miss Dun­sta­ble. She got in­to con­ver­sa­tion with the bish­op and with some oth­er peo­ple, and, ex­cept that he took her teacup and near­ly man­aged to squeeze one of her fin­gers as she did so, he made very lit­tle fur­ther progress till to­wards the close of the evening.

At last he found her so near­ly alone as to ad­mit of his speak­ing to her in a low con­fi­den­tial voice.

‘Have you man­aged that mat­ter with my aunt?’

‘What mat­ter?’ said Miss Dun­sta­ble; and her voice was not low, nor par­tic­ular­ly con­fi­den­tial.

‘About those three or four gen­tle­men whom you wish to in­vite here?’

‘Oh! my at­ten­dant knights! no, in­deed; you gave me such very slight hope of suc­cess; be­sides, you said some­thing about my not want­ing them.’

‘Yes I did; I re­al­ly think they’d be quite un­nec­es­sary. If you should want any one to de­fend you–’

‘At these com­ing elec­tions, for in­stance.’

‘Then, or at any oth­er time, there are plen­ty here who will be ready to stand up for you.’

‘Plen­ty! I don’t want plen­ty: one good lance in the old­en days was al­ways worth more than a score of or­di­nary men-​at-​arms.’

‘But you talked about three or four.’

‘Yes; but then you see, Mr Gre­sham, I have nev­er yet found the one good lance–at least, not good enough to suit my ideas of true prowess.’

What could Frank do but de­clare that he was ready to lay his own in rest, now and al­ways in her be­half?

His aunt had been quite an­gry with him, and had thought that he turned her in­to ridicule, when he spoke of mak­ing an of­fer to her guest that very evening; and yet here he was so placed that he had hard­ly an al­ter­na­tive. Let his in­ward res­olu­tion to ab­jure the heiress be ev­er so strong, he was now in a po­si­tion which al­lowed him no choice in the mat­ter. Even Mary Thorne could hard­ly have blamed him for say­ing, that so far as his own prowess went, it was quite at Miss Dun­sta­ble’s ser­vice. Had Mary been look­ing on, she per­haps, might have thought that he could have done so with less of that look of de­vo­tion which he threw in­to his eyes.

‘Well, Mr Gre­sham, that’s very civ­il–very civ­il in­deed,’ said Miss Dun­sta­ble. ‘Up­on my word, if a la­dy want­ed a true knight she might do worse than trust to you. On­ly I fear that your courage is of so ex­alt­ed a na­ture that you would be ev­er ready to do bat­tle for any beau­ty that might be in dis­tress–or, in­deed, who might not. You could nev­er con­fine your val­our to the pro­tec­tion of one maid­en.’

‘Oh, yes! but I would though if I liked her,’ said Frank. ‘There isn’t a more con­stant fel­low in the world than I am in that way–you try me, Miss Dun­sta­ble.’

‘When young ladies make such tri­als as that, they some­times find it too late to go back if the tri­al doesn’t suc­ceed, Mr Gre­sham.’

‘Oh, of course, there’s al­ways some risk. It’s like hunt­ing; there would be no fun if there was no dan­ger.’

‘But if you get a tum­ble one day you can re­trieve your hon­our the next; but a poor girl if she once trusts a man who says that he loves her, has no such chance. For my­self, I would nev­er lis­ten to a man un­less I’d known him for sev­en years at least.’

‘Sev­en years!’ said Frank, who could not help think­ing that in sev­en years’ time Miss Dun­sta­ble would be al­most an old wom­an. ‘Sev­en days is enough to know any per­son.’

‘Or per­haps sev­en hours; eh, Mr Gre­sham?’

‘Sev­en hours–well, per­haps sev­en hours, if they hap­pen to be a good deal to­geth­er dur­ing that time.’

‘There’s noth­ing af­ter all like love at first sight, is there, Mr Gre­sham?’

Frank knew well enough that she was quizzing him, and could not re­sist the temp­ta­tion he felt to be re­venged on her. ‘I am sure it’s very pleas­ant,’ said he; ‘but as for my­self, I have nev­er ex­pe­ri­enced it.’

‘Ha, ha, ha!’ laughed Miss Dun­sta­ble. ‘Up­on my word, Mr Gre­sham, I like you amaz­ing­ly. I didn’t ex­pect to meet any­body down here that I could like half so much. You must come and see me in Lon­don, and I’ll in­tro­duce you to my three knights,’ and so say­ing, she moved away and fell in­to con­ver­sa­tion with some of the high­er pow­ers.

Frank felt him­self to be rather snubbed, in spite of the strong ex­pres­sion which Miss Dun­sta­ble had made in his favour. It was not quite clear to him that she did not take him for a boy. He was, to be sure, avenged on her for that by tak­ing her for a mid­dle-​aged wom­an; but, nev­er­the­less, he was hard­ly sat­is­fied with him­self; ‘and she might find af­ter­wards that she was left in the lurch with all her mon­ey.’ And so he re­tired, soli­tary, in­to a far part of the room, and be­gan to think of Mary Thorne. As he did so, and as his eyes fell up­on Miss Dun­sta­ble’s stiff curls, he al­most shud­dered.

And then the ladies re­tired. His aunt, with a good-​na­tured smile on her face, come to him as she was leav­ing the room, the last of the bevy, and putting her hand on his arm, led him out in­to a small un­oc­cu­pied cham­ber which opened from the grand sa­loon.

‘Up­on my word, Mas­ter Frank,’ said she, ‘you seem to be los­ing no time with the heiress. You have quite made an im­pres­sion al­ready.’

‘I don’t know much about that, aunt,’ said he, look­ing rather sheep­ish.

‘Oh, I de­clare you have; but, Frank, my dear boy, you should not pre­cip­itate these sort of things too much. It is well to take a lit­tle more time: it is more val­ued; and per­haps, you know, on the whole–’

Per­haps Frank might know; but it was clear that La­dy de Cour­cy did not: at any rate, she did not know how to ex­press her­self. Had she said out her mind plain­ly, she would prob­ably have spo­ken thus: ‘I want you to make love to Miss Dun­sta­ble, cer­tain­ly; or at any rate to make an of­fer to her; but you need not make a show of your­self and of her, by do­ing it so open­ly as all that.’ The count­ess, how­ev­er, did not want to rep­ri­mand her obe­di­ent nephew, and there­fore did not speak out her thoughts.

‘Well?’ said Frank, look­ing up in­to her face.

‘Take a lee­tle more time–that is all, my dear boy; slow and sure, you know,’ so the count­ess again pat­ted his arm and went away to bed.

‘Old fool!’ mut­tered Frank to him­self, as he re­turned to the room where the men were still stand­ing. He was right in this: she was an old fool, or she would have seen that there was no chance what­ev­er that her nephew and Miss Dun­sta­ble should be­come man and wife.

‘Well Frank,’ said the Hon­ourable John; ’so you’re af­ter the heiress al­ready.’

‘He won’t give any of us a chance,’ said the Hon­ourable George. ‘If he goes on in that way she’ll be Mrs Gre­sham be­fore a month is over. But, Frank, what will she say of your man­ner of look­ing for Barch­ester votes?’

‘Mr Gre­sham is cer­tain­ly an ex­cel­lent hand at can­vass­ing,’ said Mr Nearthewinde; ‘on­ly a lit­tle too open in his man­ner of pro­ceed­ing.’

‘I got that cho­ris­ter for you at any rate,’ said Frank. ‘And you would nev­er have had him with­out me.’

‘I don’t think half so much of the cho­ris­ter’s vote as that of Miss Dun­sta­ble,’ said the Hon­ourable George: ‘that’s the in­ter­est that is re­al­ly worth look­ing af­ter.’

‘But, sure­ly,’ said Mr Mof­fat, ‘Miss Dun­sta­ble has not prop­er­ty in Barch­ester?’ Poor man! his heart was so in­tent on his elec­tion that he had no a mo­ment to de­vote to the claims of love.