Dr Thorne

CHAPTER XXVII

MISS THORNE GOES ON A VIS­IT

And now be­gan the un­pleas­ant things at Gre­shams­bury of which we have here told. When La­dy Ara­bel­la walked away from the doc­tor’s house she re­solved that, let it cost what it might, there should be war to the knife be­tween her and him. She had been in­sult­ed by him–so at least she said to her­self, and so she was pre­pared to say to oth­ers al­so–and it was not to be borne that a De Cour­cy should al­low her parish doc­tor to in­sult her with im­puni­ty. She would tell her hus­band with all the dig­ni­ty that she could as­sume, that it had now be­come ab­so­lute­ly nec­es­sary that he should pro­tect his wife by break­ing en­tire­ly with his un­man­nered neigh­bour; and, as re­gard­ed the young mem­bers of her fam­ily, she would use the au­thor­ity of a moth­er, and ab­so­lute­ly for­bid them to hold any in­ter­course with Mary Thorne. So re­solv­ing, she walked quick­ly back to her own house.

The doc­tor, when left alone, was not quite sat­is­fied with the part he had tak­en in the in­ter­view. He had spo­ken from im­pulse rather than from judge­ment, and, as is gen­er­al­ly the case with men who do so speak, he had af­ter­wards to ac­knowl­edge to him­self that he had been im­pru­dent. He ac­cused him­self prob­ably with more vi­olence than he had re­al­ly used, and was there­fore un­hap­py; but, nev­er­the­less, his in­dig­na­tion was not at rest. He was an­gry with him­self; but not on that ac­count the less an­gry with La­dy Ara­bel­la. She was cru­el of man­ners, so he thought; but not on that ac­count was he jus­ti­fied in for­get­ting the for­bear­ance due from a gen­tle­man to a la­dy. Mary, more­over, had owed much to the kind­ness of this wom­an, and, there­fore, Dr Thorne felt that he should have for­giv­en much.

Thus the doc­tor walked about his room, much dis­turbed; now ac­cus­ing him­self for hav­ing been so an­gry with La­dy Ara­bel­la, and then feed­ing his own anger by think­ing of her mis­con­duct.

The on­ly im­me­di­ate con­clu­sion at which he re­solved was this, that it was un­nec­es­sary that he should say any­thing to Mary on the sub­ject of her la­dy­ship’s vis­it. There was no doubt, sor­row enough in store for his dar­ling; why should he ag­gra­vate it? La­dy Ara­bel­la would doubt­less not stop now in her course; but why should he ac­cel­er­ate the evil which she would doubt­less be able to ef­fect?

La­dy Ara­bel­la, when she re­turned to the house, al­lowed no grass to grow un­der her feet. As she en­tered the house she de­sired that Miss Beat­rice should be sent to her di­rect­ly she re­turned; and she de­sired al­so, that as soon as the squire should be in his room a mes­sage to that ef­fect might be im­me­di­ate­ly brought to her.

‘Beat­rice,’ she said, as soon as the young la­dy ap­peared be­fore her, and in speak­ing she as­sumed her firmest tone of au­thor­ity, ‘Beat­rice, I am sor­ry, my dear, to say any­thing that is un­pleas­ant to you, but I must make it a pos­itive re­quest that you will for the fu­ture drop all in­ter­course with Dr Thorne’s fam­ily.’

Beat­rice, who had re­ceived La­dy Ara­bel­la’s mes­sage im­me­di­ate­ly on en­ter­ing the house, and had run up­stairs imag­in­ing that some in­stant haste was re­quired, now stood be­fore her moth­er rather out of breath, hold­ing her bon­net by the strings.

‘Oh, mam­ma!’ she ex­claimed, ‘what on earth has hap­pened?’

‘My dear,’ said the moth­er, ‘I can­not re­al­ly ex­plain to you what has hap­pened; but I must ask you to give me pos­itive your as­sur­ance that you will com­ply with my re­quest.’

‘You don’t mean that I am not to see Mary any more?’

‘Yes, I do, my dear; at any rate, for the present. When I tell you that your broth­er’s in­ter­est im­per­ative­ly de­mands it, I am sure that you will not refuse me.’

Beat­rice did not refuse, but she did not ap­pear too will­ing to com­ply. She stood silent, lean­ing against the end of a so­fa and twist­ing her bon­net-​strings in her hand.

‘Well, Beat­rice–’

‘But, mam­ma, I don’t un­der­stand.’

La­dy Ara­bel­la had said that she could not ex­act­ly ex­plain: but she found it nec­es­sary to at­tempt to do so.

‘Dr Thorne has open­ly de­clared to me that a mar­riage be­tween poor Frank and Mary is all he could de­sire for his niece. Af­ter such un­par­al­leled au­dac­ity as that, even your fa­ther will see the ne­ces­si­ty of break­ing with him.’

‘Dr Thorne! Oh, mam­ma, you must have mis­un­der­stood him.’

‘My dear, I am not apt to mis­un­der­stand peo­ple; es­pe­cial­ly when I am so much in earnest as I was in talk­ing to Dr Thorne.’

‘But, mam­ma, I know so well what Mary her­self thinks about it.’

‘And I know what Dr Thorne thinks about it; he, at any rate, has been can­did in what he said; there can be no doubt on earth that he has spo­ken his true thoughts; there can be no rea­son to doubt him; of course such a match would be all that he could wish.’

‘Mam­ma, I feel sure that there is some mis­take.’

‘Very well, my dear. I know that you are in­fat­uat­ed about these peo­ple, and that you are al­ways in­clined to con­tra­dict what I say to you; but, re­mem­ber, I ex­pect that you will obey me when I tell you not to go to Dr Thorne’s house any more.’

‘But, mam­ma–’

‘I ex­pect you to obey me, Beat­rice. Though you are so prone to con­tra­dict, you have nev­er dis­obeyed me; and I ful­ly trust that you will not do so now.’

La­dy Ara­bel­la had be­gun by ex­act­ing, or try­ing to ex­act a promise, but as she found that this was not forth­com­ing, she thought it bet­ter to give up the point with­out a dis­pute. It might be that Beat­rice would ab­so­lute­ly refuse to pay this re­spect to her moth­er’s au­thor­ity, and then where would she have been?

At this mo­ment a ser­vant came up to say that the squire was in his room, and La­dy Ara­bel­la was op­por­tune­ly saved the ne­ces­si­ty of dis­cussing the mat­ter fur­ther with her daugh­ter. ‘I am now,’ she said, ‘go­ing to see your fa­ther on the same sub­ject; you may be quite sure, Beat­rice that I should not will­ing­ly speak to him on any mat­ter re­lat­ing to Dr Thorne did I not find it ab­so­lute­ly nec­es­sary to do so.’

This Beat­rice knew was true, and she did there­fore feel con­vinced that some­thing ter­ri­ble must have hap­pened.

While La­dy Ara­bel­la opened her bud­get the squire sat quite silent, lis­ten­ing to her with ap­pro­pri­ate re­spect. She found it nec­es­sary that her de­scrip­tion to him should be much more elab­orate than that which she had vouch­safed to her daugh­ter, and, in telling her grievance, she in­sist­ed most es­pe­cial­ly on the per­son­al in­sult which had been of­fered to her­self.

‘Af­ter what has now hap­pened,’ said she, not quite able to re­press a tone of tri­umph as she spoke, ‘I do ex­pect, Mr Gre­sham, that you will–will–’

‘Will what, my dear?’

‘Will at least pro­tect me from the rep­eti­tion of such treat­ment.’

‘You are not afraid that Dr Thorne will come here and at­tack you? As far as I can un­der­stand, he nev­er comes near the place, un­less you send for him.’

‘No; I do not think that he will come to Gre­shams­bury any more. I be­lieve I have put a stop to that.’

‘Then what is it, my dear, that you want me to do?’

La­dy Ara­bel­la paused a minute be­fore she replied. The game which she now had to play was not very easy; she knew, or thought she knew, that her hus­band, in his heart of hearts, much pre­ferred his friend to the wife of his bo­som, and that he would, if he could, shuf­fle out of notic­ing the doc­tor’s in­iq­ui­ties. It be­hoved her, there­fore, to put them for­ward in such a way that they must be no­ticed.

‘I sup­pose, Mr Gre­sham, you do not wish that Frank should mar­ry the girl?’

‘I do not think there is the slight­est chance of such a thing; and I am quite sure that Dr Thorne would not en­cour­age it.’

‘But I tell you, Mr Gre­sham, that he says he will en­cour­age it.’

‘Oh, you mis­un­der­stand him.’

‘Of course; I al­ways mis­un­der­stand ev­ery­thing. I know that. I mis­un­der­stood it when I told you how you would dis­tress your­self if you took those nasty hounds.’

‘I have had oth­er trou­bles more ex­pen­sive than the hounds,’ said the poor squire, sigh­ing.

‘Oh, yes; I know what you mean; a wife and fam­ily are ex­pen­sive, of course. It is a lit­tle too late to com­plain of that.’

‘My dear, it is al­ways too late to com­plain of any trou­bles when they are no longer to be avoid­ed. We need not, there­fore, talk any more about hounds at present.’

‘I do not wish to speak of them, Mr Gre­sham.’

‘Nor I.’

‘But I hope you will not think me un­rea­son­able if I am anx­ious to know what you in­tend to do about Dr Thorne.’

‘To do?’

‘Yes; I sup­pose you will do some­thing: you do not wish to see your son mar­ry such a girl as Mary Thorne.’

‘As far as the girl her­self is con­cerned,’ said the squire, turn­ing rather red, ‘I am not sure that he could do much bet­ter. I know noth­ing what­ev­er against Mary. Frank, how­ev­er, can­not af­ford to make such a match. It would be his ru­in.’

‘Of course it would; ut­ter ru­in; he nev­er could hold up his head again. There­fore it is I ask, What do you in­tend to do?’

The squire was both­ered. He had no in­ten­tion what­ev­er of do­ing any­thing, and no be­lief in his wife’s as­ser­tion as to Dr Thorne’s in­iq­ui­ty. But he did not know how to get her out of the room. She asked him the same ques­tion over and over again, and on each oc­ca­sion urged on him the heinous­ness of the in­sult to which she per­son­al­ly had been sub­ject­ed; so that at last he was driv­en to ask her what it was she wished him to do.

‘Well, then, Mr Gre­sham, if you ask me, I must say, that I think you should ab­stain from any in­ter­course with Dr Thorne what­ev­er.’

‘Break off all in­ter­course with him?’

‘Yes.’

‘What do you mean? He has been turned out of this house, and I’m not to go to see him at his own.’

‘I cer­tain­ly think that you ought to dis­con­tin­ue your vis­its to Dr Thorne al­to­geth­er.’

‘Non­sense, my dear; ab­so­lute non­sense.’

‘Non­sense! Mr Gre­sham; it is no non­sense. As you speak in that way, I must let you know plain­ly what I feel. I am en­deav­our­ing to do my du­ty by my son. As you just­ly ob­serve, such a mar­riage as this would be ut­ter ru­in to him. When I found that the young peo­ple were ac­tu­al­ly talk­ing of be­ing in love with each oth­er, mak­ing vows and all that sort of thing, I did think it time to in­ter­fere. I did not, how­ev­er, turn them out of Gre­shams­bury as you ac­cuse me of do­ing. In the kind­est pos­si­ble man­ner–’

‘Well–well–well; I know all that. There, they are gone, and that’s enough. I don’t com­plain; sure­ly that ought to be enough.’

‘Enough! Mr Gre­sham. No; it is not enough. I find that, in spite of what has oc­curred, the clos­est in­ti­ma­cy ex­ists be­tween the two fam­ilies; that poor Beat­rice, who is so very young, and not so pru­dent as she should be, is made to act as a go-​be­tween; and when I speak to the doc­tor, hop­ing that he will as­sist me in pre­vent­ing this, he not on­ly tells me that he means to en­cour­age Mary in her plans, but pos­itive­ly in­sults me to my face, laughs at me for be­ing an earl’s daugh­ter, and tells me–yes, he ab­so­lute­ly told me–to get out of his house.’

Let it be told with some shame as to the squire’s con­duct, that his first feel­ing on hear­ing this was one of en­vy–of en­vy and re­gret that he could not make the same un­civ­il re­quest. Not that he wished to turn his wife ab­so­lute­ly out of his house; but he would have been very glad to have had the pow­er of dis­miss­ing her sum­mar­ily from his own room. This, how­ev­er, was at present im­pos­si­ble; so he was obliged to make some mild re­ply.

‘You must have mis­tak­en him, my dear. He could not have in­tend­ed to say that.’

‘Oh! of course, Mr Gre­sham. It is a mis­take, of course. It will be a mis­take, on­ly a mis­take when you find your son mar­ried to Mary Thorne.’

‘Well, my dear, I can­not un­der­take to quar­rel with Dr Thorne.’ This was true; for the squire could hard­ly have quar­relled with Dr Thorne, even had he wished it.

‘Then I think it right to tell you that I shall. And, Mr Gre­sham, I did not ex­pect much co-​op­er­ation from you; but I did think that you would have shown some lit­tle anger when you heard that I had been so ill-​treat­ed. I shall, how­ev­er, know how to take care of my­self; and I shall con­tin­ue to do the best I can to pro­tect Frank from these wicked in­trigues.’

So say­ing, her la­dy­ship arose and left the room, hav­ing suc­ceed­ed in de­stroy­ing the com­fort of all our Gre­shams­bury friends. It was very well for the squire to de­clare that he would not quar­rel with Dr Thorne, and of course he did not do so. But he, him­self, had no wish what­ev­er that his son should mar­ry Mary Thorne; and as a falling drop will hol­low a stone, so did the con­tin­ual harp­ing of his wife on the sub­ject give rise to some amount of sus­pi­cion in his own mind. Then as to Beat­rice, though she had made no promise that she would not again vis­it Mary, she was by no means pre­pared to set her moth­er’s au­thor­ity al­to­geth­er at de­fi­ance; and she al­so was suf­fi­cient­ly un­com­fort­able.

Dr Thorne said noth­ing of the mat­ter to his niece, and she, there­fore, would have been ab­so­lute­ly be­wil­dered by Beat­rice’s ab­sence, had she not re­ceived some tid­ings of what had tak­en place at Gre­shams­bury through Pa­tience Oriel. Beat­rice and Pa­tience dis­cussed the mat­ter ful­ly, and it was agreed be­tween them that it would be bet­ter that Mary should know what stern­er or­ders re­spect­ing her had gone forth from the tyrant at Gre­shams­bury, and that she might un­der­stand that Beat­rice’s ab­sence was com­pul­so­ry. Pa­tience was thus placed in this po­si­tion, that on one day she walked and talked with Beat­rice, and on the next with Mary; and so mat­ters went on for a while at Gre­shams­bury–not very pleas­ant­ly.

Very un­pleas­ant­ly and very un­com­fort­ably did the months of May and June pass away. Beat­rice and Mary oc­ca­sion­al­ly met, drink­ing tea to­geth­er at the par­son­age, or in some oth­er of the or­di­nary meet­ings of the coun­try so­ci­ety; but there were no more con­fi­den­tial­ly dis­tress­ing con­fi­den­tial dis­cours­es, no more whis­per­ing of Frank’s name, no more sweet al­lu­sions to the in­ex­pe­di­en­cy of a pas­sion, which, ac­cord­ing to Beat­rice’s views, would have been so de­light­ful had it been ex­pe­di­ent.

The squire and the doc­tor al­so met con­stant­ly; there were un­for­tu­nate­ly many sub­jects on which they were obliged to meet. Louis Philippe–or Sir Louis as we must call him–though he had no pow­er over his own prop­er­ty, was wide awake to all the com­ing priv­ileges of own­er­ship, and he would con­stant­ly point out to his guardian the man­ner in which, ac­cord­ing to his ideas, the most should be made of it. The young baronet’s ideas of good taste were not of the most re­fined de­scrip­tion, and he did not hes­itate to tell Dr Thorne that his, the doc­tor’s friend­ship with Mr Gre­sham must be no bar to his, the baronet’s in­ter­est. Sir Louis al­so had his own lawyer, who gave Dr Thorne to un­der­stand, that, ac­cord­ing to his ideas, the sum due on Mr Gre­sham’s prop­er­ty was too large to be left on its present foot­ing; the ti­tle-​deeds, he said, should be sur­ren­dered or the mort­gage fore­closed. All this added to the sad­ness which now seemed to en­vel­op the vil­lage of Gre­shams­bury.

Ear­ly in Ju­ly Frank was to come home. The man­ner in which the com­ings and go­ings of ‘poor Frank’ were al­lowed to dis­turb the ar­range­ments of all the ladies, and some of the gen­tle­men, of Gre­shams­bury was most abom­inable. And yet it can hard­ly be said to have been his fault. He would have been on­ly too well pleased had things been al­lowed to go on af­ter their old fash­ion. Things were not al­lowed so to go on. At Christ­mas Miss Oriel had sub­mit­ted to be ex­iled, in or­der that she might car­ry Mary away from the pres­ence of the young Bashaw, an ar­range­ment by which all the win­ter fes­tiv­ities of the poor doc­tor had been thor­ough­ly sac­ri­ficed; and now it be­gan to be said that some sim­ilar plan for the sum­mer must be ar­ranged.

It must not be sup­posed that any di­rec­tion to this ef­fect was con­veyed ei­ther to Mary or to the doc­tor. The sug­ges­tion came from them, and was men­tioned on­ly to Pa­tience. But Pa­tience, as a mat­ter of course, told Beat­rice, and Beat­rice told her moth­er, some­what tri­umphant­ly, hop­ing there­by to con­vince the she-​drag­on of Mary’s in­no­cence. Alas! she-​drag­ons are not eas­ily con­vinced of the in­no­cence of any one. La­dy Ara­bel­la quite co­in­cid­ed the pro­pri­ety of Mary’s be­ing sent off,–whith­er she nev­er in­quired,–in or­der that the coast might be clear for ‘poor Frank’; but she did not a whit the more ab­stain from talk­ing of the wicked in­trigues of those Thornes. As it turned out, Mary’s ab­sence caused her to talk all the more.

The Box­all Hill prop­er­ty, in­clud­ing the house and fur­ni­ture, had been left to the con­trac­tor’s son; it be­ing un­der­stood that the prop­er­ty would not be at present in his own hands, but that he might in­hab­it the house if he chose to do so. It would thus be nec­es­sary for La­dy Scatcherd to find a home for her­self, un­less she could re­main at Box­all Hill by her son’s per­mis­sion. In this po­si­tion of af­fairs the doc­tor had been obliged to make a bar­gain be­tween them. Sir Louis did wish to have the com­fort, or per­haps the hon­our, of a coun­try house; but he did not wish to have the ex­pense of keep­ing it up. He was al­so will­ing to let his moth­er live at the house; but not with­out a con­sid­er­ation. Af­ter a pro­longed de­gree of hag­gling, terms were agreed up­on; and a few weeks af­ter her hus­band’s death, La­dy Scatcherd found her­self alone at Box­all Hill–alone as re­gards so­ci­ety in the or­di­nary sense, but not quite alone as con­cerned her la­dy­ship, for the faith­ful Han­nah was still with her.

The doc­tor was of course of­ten at Box­all Hill, and nev­er left it with­out an ur­gent re­quest from La­dy Scatcherd that he would bring his niece over to see her. Now La­dy Scatcherd was no fit com­pan­ion for Mary Thorne, and though Mary had of­ten asked to be tak­en to Box­all Hill, cer­tain con­sid­er­ations had hith­er­to in­duced the doc­tor to refuse the re­quest; but there was about La­dy Scatcherd,–a kind of home­ly hon­esty of pur­pose, an ab­sence of all con­ceit as to her own po­si­tion, and a strength of wom­an­ly con­fi­dence in the doc­tor as her friend, which by de­grees won up­on his heart. When, there­fore, both he and Mary felt that it would be bet­ter for her again to ab­sent her­self for a while from Gre­shams­bury, it was, af­ter much de­lib­er­ation, agreed that she should go on a vis­it to Box­all Hill.

To Box­all Hill, ac­cord­ing­ly, she went, and was re­ceived al­most as a princess. Mary had all her life been ac­cus­tomed to wom­en of rank, and had nev­er ha­bit­uat­ed her­self to feel much trep­ida­tion in the pres­ence of ti­tled grandees; but she had pre­pared her­self to be more than or­di­nar­ily sub­mis­sive to La­dy Scatcherd. Her host­ess was a wid­ow, was not a wom­an of high birth, was a wom­an of whom her un­cle spoke well; and, for all these rea­sons, Mary was de­ter­mined to re­spect her, and pay to her ev­ery con­sid­er­ation. But when she set­tled down in the house she found it al­most im­pos­si­ble to do so. La­dy Scatcherd treat­ed her as a farmer’s wife might have treat­ed a con­va­les­cent young la­dy who had been sent to her charge for a few weeks, in or­der that she might ben­efit by the coun­try air. Her la­dy­ship could hard­ly bring her­self to sit still and eat her din­ner tran­quil­ly in her guest’s pres­ence. And then noth­ing was good enough for Mary. La­dy Scatcherd be­sought her, al­most with tears, to say what she liked best to eat and drink; and was in de­spair when Mary de­clared she didn’t care, that she liked any­thing, and that she was in no­wise par­tic­ular in such mat­ters.

‘A roast fowl, Miss Thorne?’

‘Very nice, La­dy Scatcherd.’

‘And bread sauce?’

‘Bread sauce–yes; oh, yes–I like bread sauce,’–and poor Mary tried hard to show a lit­tle in­ter­est.

‘And just a few sausages. We make them all in the house, Miss Thorne; we know what they are. And mashed pota­toes–do you like them best mashed or baked?’

Mary find­ing her­self obliged to vote, vot­ed for mashed pota­toes.

‘Very well. But, Miss Thorne, if you like boiled fowl bet­ter, with a lit­tle bit of ham, you know, I do hope you’ll say so. And there’s lamb in the house, quite beau­ti­ful; now do’ee say some­thing; do’ee, Miss Thorne.’

So in­voked, Mary felt her­self obliged to say some­thing, and de­clared for the roast fowl and sausages; but she found it very dif­fi­cult to pay much out­ward re­spect to a per­son who would pay so much out­ward re­spect to her. A day or two af­ter her ar­rival it was de­cid­ed that she should ride about the place on a don­key; she was ac­cus­tomed to rid­ing, the doc­tor hav­ing gen­er­al­ly tak­en care that one of his own hors­es should, when re­quired, con­sent to car­ry a la­dy; but there was no steed at Box­all Hill that she could mount; and when La­dy Scatcherd had of­fered to get a pony for her, she had will­ing­ly com­pro­mised mat­ters by ex­press­ing the de­light she would have in mak­ing a cam­paign on a don­key. Up­on this, La­dy Scatcherd had her­self set off in quest of the de­sired an­imal, much to Mary’s hor­ror; and did not re­turn till the nec­es­sary pur­chase had been ef­fect­ed. Then she came back with the don­key close at her heels, al­most hold­ing its col­lar, and stood there at the hall-​door till Mary came to ap­prove.

‘I hope she’ll do. I don’t think she’ll kick,’ said La­dy Scatcherd, pat­ting the head of her pur­chase quite tri­umphant­ly.

‘Oh, you are so kind, La­dy Scatcherd. I’m sure she’ll do quite nice­ly; she seems very qui­et,’ said Mary.

‘Please, my la­dy, it’s a he,’ said the boy who held the hal­ter.

‘Oh! a he, is it?’ said her la­dy­ship; ‘but the he-​don­keys are quite as qui­et as the shes ain’t they?’

‘Oh, yes, my la­dy; a deal qui­eter, all the world over, and twice as use­ful.’

‘I’m so glad of that, Miss Thorne,’ said La­dy Scatcherd, her eyes bright with joy.

And so Mary was es­tab­lished with her don­key, who did all that could be ex­pect­ed from an an­imal in his po­si­tion.

‘But, dear La­dy Scatcherd,’ said Mary, as they sat to­geth­er at the open draw­ing-​room win­dow the same evening, ‘you must not go on call­ing me Miss Thorne; my name is Mary, you know. Won’t you call me Mary?’ and she came and knelt at La­dy Scatcherd’s feet, and took hold of her, look­ing up in­to her face.

La­dy Scatcherd’s cheeks be­came rather red, as though she was some­what ashamed of her po­si­tion.

‘You are very kind to me,’ con­tin­ued Mary, ‘and it seems so cold to hear you call me Miss Thorne.’

‘Well, Miss Thorne, I’m sure I’d call you any­thing to please you. On­ly I didn’t know whether you’d like it from me. Else I do think Mary is the pret­ti­est name in all the lan­guage.’

‘I should like it very much.’

‘My dear Roger al­ways loved that name bet­ter than any oth­er; ten times bet­ter. I used to wish some­times that I’d been called Mary.’

‘Did he! Why?’

‘He once had a sis­ter called Mary; such a beau­ti­ful crea­ture! I de­clare that some­times think you are like her.’

‘Oh, dear! then she must have been very beau­ti­ful in­deed!’ said Mary, laugh­ing.

‘She was very beau­ti­ful. I just re­mem­ber her–oh, so beau­ti­ful! she was quite a poor girl, you know; and so was I then. Isn’t it odd that I should have to be called “my la­dy” now. Do you know Miss Thorne–’

‘Mary! Mary!’ said her guest.

‘Ah, yes; but some­how, I hard­ly like to make so free; but, as I was say­ing, I do so dis­like be­ing called “my la­dy”: I al­ways think the peo­ple are laugh­ing at me; and so they are.’

‘Oh, non­sense.’

‘Yes they are though: poor dear Roger, he used to call me “my la­dy” just to make fun of me; I didn’t mind it so much from him. But, Miss Thorne–’

‘Mary, Mary, Mary.’

‘Ah, well! I shall do it in time. But, Miss–Mary, ha! ha! ha! nev­er mind, let me alone. But what I want to say is this: do you think I could drop it? Han­nah says, that if I go the right way about it she is sure I can.’

‘Oh! but, La­dy Scatcherd, you shouldn’t think of such a thing.’

‘Shouldn’t I now?’

‘Oh, no; for your hus­band’s sake you should be proud of it. He gained great hon­our, you know.’

‘Ah, well,’ said she, sigh­ing af­ter a short pause; ‘if you think it will do him any good, of course I’ll put up with it. And then I know Louis would be mad if I talked of such a thing. But, Miss Thorne, dear, a wom­an like me don’t like to have to be made a fool of all the days of her life if she can help it.’

‘But, La­dy Scatcherd,’ said Mary, when this ques­tion of the ti­tle had been du­ly set­tled, and her la­dy­ship made to un­der­stand that she must bear the bur­den for the rest of her life, ‘but, La­dy Scatcherd, you were speak­ing of Sir Roger’s sis­ter; what be­came of her?’

‘Oh, she did very well at last, as Sir Roger did him­self; but in ear­ly life she was very un­for­tu­nate–just at His­to­ria Au­gus­ta time of my mar­riage to dear Roger–,’ and then, just as she was about to com­mence so much as she knew of the his­to­ry of Mary Scatcherd, she re­mem­bered that the au­thor of her sis­ter-​in-​law’s mis­ery had been a Thorne, a broth­er of the doc­tor; and, there­fore, as she pre­sumed, a rel­ative of her guest; and sud­den­ly she be­came mute.

‘Well,’ said Mary; ‘just as you were mar­ried, La­dy Scatcherd?’

Poor La­dy Scatcherd had very lit­tle world­ly knowl­edge, and did not in the least know how to turn the con­ver­sa­tion or es­cape from the trou­ble in­to which she had fall­en. All man­ner of re­flec­tions be­gan to crowd up­on her. In her ear­ly days she had known very lit­tle of the Thornes, nor had she thought much of them since, ex­cept as re­gard­ed her friend the doc­tor; but at this mo­ment she be­gan to think that she had nev­er heard more than two broth­ers in the fam­ily. Who then could have Mary’s fa­ther? She felt at once that it would be im­prop­er for to say any­thing as to Hen­ry Thorne’s ter­ri­ble faults and sud­den fate;–im­prop­er al­so, to say more about Mary Scatcherd; but she was quite un­able to drop the mat­ter oth­er­wise than abrupt­ly, and with a start.

‘She was very un­for­tu­nate, you say, La­dy Scatcherd?’

‘Yes, Miss Thorne; Mary, I mean–nev­er mind me–I shall do it in time. Yes, she was; but now I think of it, I had bet­ter say noth­ing more about it. There are rea­sons, and I ought not to have spo­ken of it. You won’t be pro­voked with me, will you?’

Mary as­sured her that she would not be pro­voked, and of course asked no more ques­tions about Mary Scatcherd; nor did she think much more about it. It was not so how­ev­er with her la­dy­ship, who could not keep her­self from re­flect­ing that the old cler­gy­man at the Close at Barch­ester cer­tain­ly had but two sons, one of whom was now the doc­tor at Gre­shams­bury, and the oth­er of whom had per­ished so wretched­ly at the gate of that farm­yard. Who then was the fa­ther of Mary Thorne?

The days passed very qui­et­ly at Box­all Hill. Ev­ery morn­ing Mary went out on her don­key, who jus­ti­fied by his de­meanour all that had been said in his praise; then she would read or draw, then walk with La­dy Scatcherd, then dine, then walk again; and so the days passed qui­et­ly away. Once or twice a week the doc­tor would come over and drink his tea there, rid­ing home in the cool of the evening. Mary al­so re­ceived one vis­it from her friend Pa­tience.

So the days passed qui­et­ly away till the tran­quil­li­ty of the house was sud­den­ly bro­ken by tid­ings from Lon­don. La­dy Scatcherd re­ceived a let­ter from her son, con­tained in three lines, in which he in­ti­mat­ed that on the fol­low­ing day he meant to hon­our them with a vis­it. He had in­tend­ed, he said, to have gone to Brighton with some friends; but as he felt him­self a lit­tle out of sorts, he would post­pone his ma­rine trip and do his moth­er the grace of spend­ing a few days with her.

This news was not very pleas­ant to Mary, by whom it had been un­der­stood, as it had been al­so by her un­cle, that La­dy Scatcherd would have had the house to her­self; but as there was no means of pre­vent­ing the evil, Mary could on­ly in­form the doc­tor, and pre­pare her­self to meet Sir Louis Scatcherd.