Dr Thorne

CHAPTER XXVI

WAR

We need not fol­low Sir Roger to his grave, nor par­take of the baked meats which were fur­nished for his fu­ner­al ban­quet. Such men as Sir Roger Scatcherd are al­ways well buried, and we have al­ready seen that his glo­ries were du­ly told to pos­ter­ity in the graph­ic dic­tion of his sepul­chral mon­ument. In a few days the doc­tor had re­turned to his quete home and Sir Louis found him­self reign­ing at Box­all Hill in his fa­ther’s stead–with, how­ev­er, a much di­min­ished sway, and, as he thought it, but a poor ex­che­quer. We must soon re­turn to him and say some­thing of his ca­reer as a baronet; but for the present, we may go back to our more pleas­ant friends at Gre­shams­bury.

But our friends at Gre­shams­bury had not been mak­ing them­selves pleas­ant–not so pleas­ant to each oth­er as cir­cum­stances would have ad­mit­ted. In those days which the doc­tor had felt him­self bound to pass, if not al­to­geth­er at Box­all Hill, yet al­to­geth­er away from his own home, so as to ad­mit of his be­ing as much as pos­si­ble with his pa­tient, Mary had been thrown more than ev­er with Pa­tience Oriel, and, al­so, al­most more than ev­er with Beat­rice Gre­sham. As re­gard­ed Mary, she would doubt­less have pre­ferred the com­pan­ion­ship of Pa­tience, though she loved Beat­rice far the best; but she had no choice. When she went to the par­son­age Beat­rice came there al­so, and when Pa­tience came to the doc­tor’s house Beat­rice ei­ther ac­com­pa­nied or fol­lowed her. Mary could hard­ly have re­ject­ed their so­ci­ety, even had she felt it wise to do so. She would in such case have been all alone, and her sev­er­ance from the Gre­shams­bury house and house­hold, from the big fam­ily in which she had for so many years been al­most at home, would have made such soli­tude al­most un­en­durable.

And then these two girls both knew–not her se­cret; she had no se­cret–but the lit­tle his­to­ry of her ill-​treat­ment. They knew that though she had been blame­less in this mat­ter, yet she had been the one to bear the pun­ish­ment; and, as girls and bo­som friends, they could not but sym­pa­thize with her, and en­dow her with hero­ic at­tributes; make her, in fact, as we are do­ing, their lit­tle hero­ine for the nonce. This was, per­haps, not ser­vice­able for Mary; but it was far from be­ing dis­agree­able.

The ten­den­cy to find­ing mat­ter for hero-​wor­ship in Mary’s en­durance was much stronger with Beat­rice than with Miss Oriel. Miss Oriel was the el­der, and nat­ural­ly less af­flict­ed with the sen­ti­men­ta­tion of ro­mance. She had thrown her­self in­to Mary’s arms be­cause she had seen that it was es­sen­tial­ly nec­es­sary for Mary’s com­fort that she should do so. She was anx­ious to make her friend smile, and to smile with her. Beat­rice was quite as true in her sym­pa­thy; but she rather wished that she and Mary might weep in uni­son, shed mu­tu­al tears, and break their hearts to­geth­er.

Pa­tience had spo­ken of Frank’s love as a mis­for­tune, of his con­duct as er­ro­neous, and to be ex­cused on­ly by his youth, and had nev­er ap­peared to sur­mise that Mary al­so might be in love as well as he. But to Beat­rice the af­fair was a trag­ic dif­fi­cul­ty, ad­mit­ting of no so­lu­tion; a Gor­dian knot, not to be cut; a mis­ery now and for ev­er. She would al­ways talk about Frank when she and Mary were alone; and, to speak the truth, Mary did not stop her as she per­haps should have done.

As for a mar­riage be­tween them, that was im­pos­si­ble; Beat­rice was well sure of that: it was Frank’s un­for­tu­nate des­tiny that he must mar­ry mon­ey–mon­ey, and, as Beat­rice some­times thought­less­ly added, cut­ting Mary to the quick,–mon­ey and fam­ily al­so. Un­der such cir­cum­stances a mar­riage be­tween them was quite im­pos­si­ble; but not the less did Beat­rice de­clare, that she would have loved Mary as her sis­ter-​in-​law had it been pos­si­ble; and how wor­thy Frank was of a girl’s love, had such love been pos­si­ble.

‘It is so cru­el,’ Beat­rice would say; ’so very, very, cru­el. You would have suit­ed him in ev­ery way.’

‘Non­sense, Trichy; I should have suit­ed him in no pos­si­ble way at all; nor he me.’

‘Oh, but you would–ex­act­ly. Pa­pa loves you so well.’

‘And mam­ma; that would have been so nice.’

‘Yes; and mam­ma, too–that is, had you had a for­tune,’ said the daugh­ter, naive­ly. ‘She al­ways liked you per­son­al­ly, al­ways.’

‘Did she?’

‘Al­ways. And we all love you so.’

‘Es­pe­cial­ly La­dy Alexan­dri­na.’

‘That would not have sig­ni­fied, for Frank can­not en­dure the De Cour­cys him­self.’

‘My dear, it does not mat­ter one straw whom your broth­er can en­dure or not en­dure just at present. His char­ac­ter is to be formed, and his tastes, and his heart al­so.’

‘Oh, Mary!–his heart.’

‘Yes, his heart; not the fact of his hav­ing a heart. I think he has a heart; but he him­self does not yet un­der­stand it.’

‘Oh, Mary! you do not know him.’

Such con­ver­sa­tions were not with­out dan­ger to poor Mary’s com­fort. It came soon to be the case that she looked rather for this sort of sym­pa­thy from Beat­rice, than for Miss Oriel’s pleas­ant but less pi­quant gai­ety.

So the days of the doc­tor’s ab­sence were passed, and so al­so the first week af­ter his re­turn. Dur­ing this week it was al­most dai­ly nec­es­sary that the squire should be with him. The doc­tor was now the le­gal hold­er of Sir Roger’s prop­er­ty, and, as such, the hold­er al­so of all the mort­gages on Mr Gre­sham’s prop­er­ty; and it was nat­ural that they should be much to­geth­er. The doc­tor would not, how­ev­er, go up to Gre­shams­bury on any oth­er than med­ical busi­ness; and it there­fore be­came nec­es­sary that the squire should be a good deal at the doc­tor’s house.

Then the La­dy Ara­bel­la be­came un­hap­py in her mind. Frank, it was true, was away at Cam­bridge, and had been suc­cess­ful­ly kept out of Mary’s way since the sus­pi­cion of dan­ger had fall­en up­on La­dy Ara­bel­la’s mind. Frank was away, and Mary was sys­tem­at­ical­ly ban­ished, with due ac­knowl­edge­ment from all the pow­ers in Gre­shams­bury. But this was not enough for La­dy Ara­bel­la as long as her daugh­ter still ha­bit­ual­ly con­sort­ed with the fe­male cul­prit, and as long as her hus­band con­sort­ed with the male cul­prit. It seemed to La­dy Ara­bel­la at this mo­ment as though, in ban­ish­ing Mary from the house, she had in ef­fect ban­ished her­self from the most in­ti­mate of the Gre­shams­bury so­cial cir­cles. She mag­ni­fied in her own mind the im­por­tance of the con­fer­ences be­tween the girls, and was not with­out some fear that the doc­tor might be talk­ing the squire over in­to very dan­ger­ous com­pli­ance.

Her ob­ject was to break of all con­fi­den­tial in­ter­course be­tween Beat­rice and Mary, and to in­ter­rupt, as far as she could do it, that be­tween the doc­tor and the squire. This, it may be said, could be more eas­ily done by skil­ful man­age­ment with­in her own house­hold. She had, how­ev­er, tried that and failed. She had said much to Beat­rice as to the im­pru­dence of her friend­ship with Mary, and she had done this pur­pose­ly be­fore the squire; in­ju­di­cious­ly how­ev­er–for the squire had im­me­di­ate­ly tak­en Mary’s part, and had de­clared that he had no wish to see a quar­rel be­tween his fam­ily and that of the doc­tor; that Mary Thorne was in ev­ery way a good girl, and an el­igi­ble friend for his own child; and had end­ed by declar­ing, that he would not have Mary per­se­cut­ed for Frank’s fault. This had not been the end, nor near­ly the end of what had been said on the mat­ter at Gre­shams­bury; but the end, when it came, came in this wise, that La­dy Ara­bel­la de­ter­mined to say a few words to the doc­tor as to the ex­pe­di­en­cy of for­bid­ding fa­mil­iar in­ter­course be­tween Mary and any of the Gre­shams­bury peo­ple.

With this view La­dy Ara­bel­la ab­so­lute­ly beard­ed the li­on in his den, the doc­tor in his shop. She had heard that both Mary and Beat­rice were to pass a cer­tain af­ter­noon at the par­son­age, and took that op­por­tu­ni­ty of call­ing at the doc­tor’s house. A pe­ri­od of many years had passed since she had last so hon­oured that abode. Mary, in­deed, had been so much one of her own fam­ily that the cer­emo­ny of call­ing on her had nev­er been thought nec­es­sary; and thus, un­less Mary had been ab­so­lute­ly ill, there would have been noth­ing to bring her la­dy­ship to the house. All this she knew would add to the im­por­tance of the oc­ca­sion, and she judged it pru­dent to make the oc­ca­sion as im­por­tant as it might well be.

She was so far suc­cess­ful that she soon found her­self tete-​a-​tete with the doc­tor in his own study. She was no whit dis­mayed by the pair of hu­man thigh-​bones which lay close to his hand, and which, when he was talk­ing in that den of his own, he was in the con­stant habit of han­dling with much en­er­gy; nor was she fright­ened out of her pro­pri­ety even by the lit­tle child’s skull which grinned at her from off the chim­ney-​piece.

‘Doc­tor,’ she said, as soon as the first com­pli­men­ta­ry greet­ings were over, speak­ing in her kind­est and most would-​be-​con­fi­den­tial tone. ‘Doc­tor, I am still un­easy about that boy of mine, and I have thought it best to come and see you at once, and tell you freely what I think.’

The doc­tor bowed, and said that he was very sor­ry that she should have any cause for un­easi­ness about his young friend Frank.

‘In­deed, I am very un­easy, doc­tor; and hav­ing, as I do have, such re­liance on your pru­dence, and such per­fect con­fi­dence in your friend­ship, I have thought it best to come and speak to you open­ly:’ there­upon the La­dy Ara­bel­la paused, and the doc­tor bowed again.

‘No­body knows so well as you do the dread­ful state of the squire’s af­fairs.’

‘Not so dread­ful; not so very dread­ful,’ said the doc­tor, mild­ly: ‘that is, as far as I know.’

‘Yes they are, doc­tor; very dread­ful; very dread­ful in­deed. You know how much he owes to this young man: I do not, for the squire nev­er tells any­thing to me; but I know that it is a very large sum of mon­ey; enough to swamp the es­tate and ru­in Frank. Now I call that very dread­ful.’

‘No, not ru­in him, La­dy Ara­bel­la; not ru­in him, I hope.’

‘How­ev­er, I did not come to talk to you about that. As I said be­fore, I know noth­ing of the squire’s af­fairs, and, as a mat­ter of course, I do not ask you to tell me. But I am sure you will agree with me in this that, as a moth­er, I can­not but be in­ter­est­ed about my on­ly son,’ and La­dy Ara­bel­la put her cam­bric hand­ker­chief to her eyes.

‘Of course you are; of course you are,’ said the doc­tor; ‘and, La­dy Ara­bel­la, my opin­ion of Frank is such, that I feel sure that he will do well;’ and, in his en­er­gy, Dr Thorne bran­dished one of the thigh-​bones al­most in the la­dy’s face.

‘I hope he will; I am sure I hope he will. But, doc­tor, he has such dan­gers to con­tend with; he is so warm and im­pul­sive that I fear his heart will bring him in­to trou­ble. Now, you know, un­less Frank mar­ries mon­ey he is lost.’

The doc­tor made no an­swer to this last ap­peal, but as he sat and lis­tened a slight frown came across his brow.

‘He must mar­ry mon­ey, doc­tor. Now we have, you see, with your as­sis­tance, con­trived to sep­arate him from dear Mary–’

‘With my as­sis­tance, La­dy Ara­bel­la! I have giv­en no as­sis­tance, nor have I med­dled in the mat­ter; nor will I.’

‘Well, doc­tor, per­haps not med­dled; but you agreed with me, you know, that the two young peo­ple had been im­pru­dent.’

‘I agreed to no such thing, La­dy Ara­bel­la; nev­er, nev­er. I not on­ly nev­er agreed that Mary had been im­pru­dent, but I will not agree to it now, and will not al­low any one to as­sert it in my pres­ence with­out con­tra­dict­ing it:’ and then the doc­tor worked away at the thigh-​bones in a man­ner that did rather alarm her la­dy­ship.

‘At any rate, you thought that the young peo­ple had bet­ter be kept apart.’

‘No; nei­ther did I think that: my niece, I felt sure, was safe from dan­ger. I knew that she would do noth­ing that would bring ei­ther her or me to shame.’

‘Not to shame,’ said the la­dy apolo­get­ical­ly, as it were, us­ing the word per­haps not ex­act­ly in the doc­tor’s sense.

‘I felt no alarm for her,’ con­tin­ued the doc­tor, ‘and de­sired no change. Frank is your son, and it is for you to look to him. You thought prop­er to do so by de­sir­ing Mary to ab­sent her­self from Gre­shams­bury.’

‘Oh, no, no, no!’ said La­dy Ara­bel­la.

‘But you did, La­dy Ara­bel­la; and as Gre­shams­bury is your home, nei­ther I nor my niece had any ground of com­plaint. We ac­qui­esced, not with­out much suf­fer­ing, but we did ac­qui­esce; and you, I think, can have no ground of com­plaint against me.’

La­dy Ara­bel­la had hard­ly ex­pect­ed that the doc­tor would re­ply to her mild and con­cil­ia­to­ry ex­ordi­um with so much stern­ness. He had yield­ed so eas­ily to her on the for­mer oc­ca­sion. She did not com­pre­hend that when she ut­tered her sen­tence of ex­ile against Mary, she had giv­en an or­der which she had the pow­er of en­forc­ing; but that obe­di­ence to that or­der had now placed Mary al­to­geth­er be­yond her ju­ris­dic­tion. She was, there­fore, a lit­tle sur­prised, and for a few mo­ments over­awed by the doc­tor’s man­ner; but she soon re­cov­ered her­self, re­mem­ber­ing, doubt­less, that for­tune favours none but the brave.

‘I make no com­plaint, Dr Thorne,’ she said, af­ter as­sum­ing a tone more be­fit­ting a De Cour­cy than that hith­er­to used, ‘I make no com­plaint ei­ther as re­gards you or Mary.’

‘You are very kind, La­dy Ara­bel­la.’

‘But I think that it is my du­ty to put a stop, a peremp­to­ry stop to any­thing like a love af­fair be­tween my son and your niece.’

‘I have not the least ob­jec­tion in life. If there is such a love af­fair, put a stop to it–that is, if you have the pow­er.’

Here the doc­tor was doubt­less im­pru­dent. But he had be­gun to think that he had yield­ed suf­fi­cient­ly to the la­dy; and he had be­gun to re­solve, al­so, that though it would not be­come him to en­cour­age even the idea of such a mar­riage, he would make La­dy Ara­bel­la un­der­stand that he thought his niece quite good enough for her son, and that the match, if re­gard­ed as im­pru­dent, was to be re­gard­ed as equal­ly im­pru­dent on both sides. He would not suf­fer that Mary and her heart and feel­ings and in­ter­est should be al­to­geth­er post­poned to those of the young heir; and, per­haps, he was un­con­scious­ly en­cour­aged in this de­ter­mi­na­tion by the re­flec­tion that Mary her­self might per­haps be­come a young heiress.

‘It is my du­ty,’ said La­dy Ara­bel­la, re­peat­ing her words with even a stronger De Cour­cy in­to­na­tion; ‘and your du­ty al­so, Dr Thorne.’

‘My du­ty!’ said he, ris­ing from his chair and lean­ing on the ta­ble with the two thigh-​bones. ‘La­dy Ara­bel­la, pray un­der­stand at once, that I re­pu­di­ate any such du­ty, and will have noth­ing what­ev­er to do with it.’

‘But you do not mean to say that you will en­cour­age this un­for­tu­nate boy to mar­ry your niece?’

‘The un­for­tu­nate boy, La­dy Ara­bel­la–whom, by the by, I re­gard as a very for­tu­nate young man–is your son, not mine. I shall take no steps about his mar­riage, ei­ther one way or the oth­er.’

‘You think it right, then, that your niece should throw her­self in his way?’

‘Throw her­self in his way! What would you say if I came up to Gre­shams­bury, and spoke of your daugh­ters in such lan­guage? What would my dear friend, Mr Gre­sham say, if some neigh­bour’s wife should come and so speak to him? I will tell you what he would say: he would qui­et­ly beg her to go back to her own home and med­dle on­ly with her own mat­ters.’

This was dread­ful to La­dy Ara­bel­la. Even Dr Thorne had nev­er be­fore dared thus to low­er her to the lev­el of com­mon hu­man­ity, and liken her to any oth­er wife in the coun­try-​side. More­over, she was not quite sure whether he, the parish doc­tor, was not de­sir­ing her, the earl’s daugh­ter, to go home and mind her own busi­ness. On this first point, how­ev­er, there seemed to be no room for doubt, of which she gave her­self the ben­efit.

‘It would not be­come me to ar­gue with you, Dr Thorne,’ she said.

‘Not at least on this sub­ject,’ said he.

‘I can on­ly re­peat that I mean noth­ing of­fen­sive to our dear Mary; for whom, I think I may say, I have al­ways shown al­most a moth­er’s care.’

‘Nei­ther am I, nor is Mary, un­grate­ful for the kind­ness she has re­ceived at Gre­shams­bury.’

‘But I must do my du­ty: my own chil­dren must be my first con­sid­er­ation.’

‘Of course they must, La­dy Ara­bel­la; that’s of course.’

‘And, there­fore, I have called on you to say that I think it is im­pru­dent that Beat­rice and Mary should be so much to­geth­er.’

The doc­tor had been stand­ing dur­ing the lat­ter part of this con­ver­sa­tion, but now he be­gan to walk about, still hold­ing the two bones like a pair of dumb-​bells.

‘God bless my soul!’ he said; ‘God bless my soul! Why, La­dy Ara­bel­la, do you sus­pect your own daugh­ter as well as your own son? Do you think that Beat­rice is as­sist­ing Mary in prepar­ing this wicked clan­des­tine mar­riage? I tell you fair­ly, La­dy Ara­bel­la, the present tone of your mind is such that I can­not un­der­stand it.’

‘I sus­pect no­body, Dr Thorne; but young peo­ple will be young.’

‘And old peo­ple must be old, I sup­pose; the more’s the pity. La­dy Ara­bel­la, Mary is the same to me as my own daugh­ter, and owes me the obe­di­ence of a child; but as I do not dis­ap­prove of your daugh­ter Beat­rice as an ac­quain­tance for her, but rather, on the oth­er hand, re­gard with plea­sure their friend­ship, you can­not ex­pect that I should take any steps to put an end to it.’

‘But sup­pose it should lead to re­newed in­ter­course be­tween Frank and Mary?’

‘I have no ob­jec­tion. Frank is a very nice young fel­low, gen­tle­man­like in his man­ners, and neigh­bourly in his dis­po­si­tion.’

‘Dr Thorne–’

‘La­dy Ara­bel­la–’

‘I can­not be­lieve that you re­al­ly in­tend to ex­press a wish–’

‘You are quite right. I have not in­tend­ed to ex­press any wish; nor do I in­tend to do so. Mary is at lib­er­ty, with­in cer­tain bounds–which I am sure she will not pass–to choose her own friends. I think she has not cho­sen bad­ly as re­gards Miss Beat­rice Gre­sham; and should she even add Frank Gre­sham to the num­ber–’

‘Friends! why they were more than friends; they were de­clared lovers.’

‘I doubt that, La­dy Ara­bel­la, be­cause I have not heard of it from Mary. But even if it were so, I do not see why I should ob­ject.’

‘Not ob­ject!’

‘As I said be­fore, Frank is, to my think­ing, an ex­cel­lent young man. Why should I ob­ject?’

‘Dr Thorne!’ said her la­dy­ship, now al­so ris­ing from her chair in a state of too ev­ident per­tur­ba­tion.

‘Why should I ob­ject? It is for you, La­dy Ara­bel­la, to look af­ter your lambs; for me to see that, if pos­si­ble, no harm shall come to mine. If you think that Mary is an im­prop­er ac­quain­tance for your chil­dren, it is for you to guide them; for you and their fa­ther. Say what you think fit to your own daugh­ter; but pray un­der­stand, once for all, that I will al­low no one to in­ter­fere with my niece.’

‘In­ter­fere!’ said La­dy Ara­bel­la, now ab­so­lute­ly con­fused by the sever­ity of the doc­tor’s man­ner.

‘I will al­low no one to in­ter­fere with her; no one, La­dy Ara­bel­la. She has suf­fered very great­ly from im­pu­ta­tions which you have most un­just­ly thrown on her. It was, how­ev­er, your un­doubt­ed right to turn her out of your house if you thought fit;–though, as a wom­an who had known her for so many years, you might, I think, have treat­ed her with more for­bear­ance. That, how­ev­er, was your right, and you ex­er­cised it. There your priv­ilege stops; yes, and must stop, La­dy Ara­bel­la. You shall not per­se­cute her here, on the on­ly spot of ground she can call her own.’

‘Per­se­cute her, Dr Thorne! You do not mean to say that I have per­se­cut­ed her?’

‘Ah! but I do mean to say so. You do per­se­cute her, and would con­tin­ue to do so did I not de­fend her. It is not suf­fi­cient that she is for­bid­den to en­ter your do­main–and so for­bid­den with the knowl­edge of all the coun­try round–but you must come here al­so with the hope of in­ter­rupt­ing all the in­no­cent plea­sures of her life. Fear­ing lest she should be al­lowed even to speak to your son, to hear of word of him through his own sis­ter, you would put her in prison, tie her up, keep her from the light of day–’

‘Dr Thorne! how can you–’

But the doc­tor was not to be in­ter­rupt­ed.

‘It nev­er oc­curs to you to tie him up, to put him in prison. No; he is the heir of Gre­shams­bury; he is your son, an earl’s grand­son. It is on­ly nat­ural, af­ter all, that he should throw a few fool­ish words at the doc­tor’s niece. But she! it is an of­fence not to be for­giv­en on her part that she should, how­ev­er, un­will­ing­ly, have been forced to lis­ten to them! Now un­der­stand me, La­dy Ara­bel­la; if any of your fam­ily come to my house I shall be de­light­ed to wel­come them; if Mary should meet any of them else­where I shall be de­light­ed to hear of it. Should she tell me to-​mor­row that she was en­gaged to mar­ry Frank, I should talk the mat­ter over with her, quite cool­ly, sole­ly with a view to her in­ter­est, as would be my du­ty; feel­ing, at the same time, that Frank would be lucky in hav­ing such a wife. Now you know my mind, La­dy Ara­bel­la. It is so I should do my du­ty;–you can do yours as you may think fit.’

La­dy Ara­bel­la had by this time per­ceived that she was not des­tined, on this oc­ca­sion to gain any great vic­to­ry. She, how­ev­er, was an­gry as well as the doc­tor. It was not the man’s ve­he­mence that pro­voked her so much as his ev­ident de­ter­mi­na­tion to break down the pres­tige of her rank, and place her on a foot­ing in no re­spect su­pe­ri­or to his own. He had nev­er be­fore been so au­da­cious­ly ar­ro­gant; and, as she moved to­wards the door, she de­ter­mined in her wrath that she would nev­er again have con­fi­den­tial in­ter­course with him in any re­la­tion of life what­so­ev­er.

‘Dr Thorne,’ said she. ‘I think you have for­got­ten your­self. You must ex­cuse me if I say that af­ter what has passed I–I–I–’

‘Cer­tain­ly,’ said he, ful­ly un­der­stand­ing what she meant; and bow­ing low as he opened first the study-​door, then the front-​door, then the gar­den-​gate.

And then the La­dy Ara­bel­la stalked off, not with­out full ob­ser­va­tion from Mrs Yates Um­ble­by and her friend Miss Gus­tring, who lived close by.