Dr Thorne

CHAPTER XXIX

THE DON­KEY RIDE

Sir Louis, when left to him­self, was slight­ly dis­mayed and some­what dis­cour­aged; but he was not in­duced to give up his ob­ject. The first ef­fort of his mind was made in con­jec­tur­ing what pri­vate mo­tive Dr Thorne could pos­si­bly have in wish­ing to de­bar his niece from mar­ry­ing a rich young baronet. That the ob­jec­tion was per­son­al to him­self, Sir Louis did not for a mo­ment imag­ine. Could it be that the doc­tor did not wish that his niece should be rich­er, and grander, and al­to­geth­er big­ger than him­self? Or was it pos­si­ble that his guardian was anx­ious to pre­vent him from mar­ry­ing from some view of the re­ver­sion of the large for­tune? That there was some such rea­son, Sir Louis was well sure; but let it be what it might, he would get the bet­ter of the doc­tor. ‘He knew so,’ so he said to him­self, ‘what stuff girls were made of. Baronets did not grow like black­ber­ries.’ And so, as­sur­ing him­self with such phi­los­ophy, he de­ter­mined to make his of­fer.

The time he se­lect­ed for do­ing this was the hour be­fore din­ner; but on the day on which his con­ver­sa­tion with the doc­tor had tak­en place, he was de­terred by the pres­ence of a strange vis­itor. To ac­count for this strange vis­it it will be nec­es­sary that we should re­turn to Gre­shams­bury for a few min­utes.

Frank, when he re­turned home for his sum­mer va­ca­tion, found that Mary had again flown; and the very fact of her ab­sence added fu­el to the fire of his love, more per­haps then even her pres­ence might have done. For the flight of the quar­ry ev­er adds ea­ger­ness to the pur­suit of the hunts­man. La­dy Ara­bel­la, more­over, had a bit­ter en­emy; a foe, ut­ter­ly op­posed to her side in the con­test, where she had once fond­ly looked for her staunch­est al­ly. Frank was now in the habit of cor­re­spond­ing with Miss Dun­sta­ble, and re­ceived from her most en­er­get­ic ad­mo­ni­tions to be true to the love which he had sworn. True to it he re­solved to be; and, there­fore, when he found that Mary was flown, he re­solved to fly af­ter her.

He did not, how­ev­er, do this till he had been in a mea­sure pro­voked by it by the sharp-​tongued cau­tions and blunt­ed irony of his moth­er. It was not enough for her that she had ban­ished Mary out of the parish, and made Dr Thorne’s life mis­er­able; not enough that she ha­rassed her hus­band with ha­rangues on the con­stant sub­ject of Frank’s mar­ry­ing mon­ey, and dis­mayed Beat­rice with in­vec­tives against the in­iq­ui­ty of her friend. The snake was so but scotched; to kill it out­right she must in­duce Frank ut­ter­ly to re­nounce Miss Thorne.

This task she es­sayed, but not ex­act­ly with suc­cess. ‘Well, moth­er,’ said Frank, at last turn­ing very red, part­ly with shame, and part­ly with in­dig­na­tion, as he made the frank avow­al, ’since you press me about it, I tell you fair­ly that my mind is made up to mar­ry Mary soon­er or lat­er, if–’

‘Oh, Frank! good heav­ens! you wicked boy; you are say­ing this pur­pose­ly to drive me dis­tract­ed.’

‘If,’ con­tin­ued Frank, not at­tend­ing to his moth­er’s in­ter­jec­tions, ‘if she will con­sent.’

‘Con­sent!’ said La­dy Ara­bel­la. ‘Oh, heav­ens!’ and falling in­to the cor­ner of her so­fa, she buried her face in her hand­ker­chief.

‘Yes, moth­er, if she will con­sent. And now that I have told you so much, it is on­ly just that I should tell you this al­so; that as far as I can see at present I have no rea­son to hope that she will do so.’

‘Oh, Frank, the girl is do­ing all she can to catch you,’ said La­dy Ara­bel­la,–not pru­dent­ly.

‘No, moth­er; there you wrong her al­to­geth­er; wrong her most cru­el­ly.’

‘You un­gra­cious, wicked boy! you call me cru­el!’

‘I don’t call you cru­el; but you wrong her cru­el­ly, most cru­el­ly. When I have spo­ken to her about this–for I have spo­ken to her–she has be­haved ex­act­ly as you would have want­ed her to do; but not at all as I wished her. She has giv­en me no en­cour­age­ment. You have turned her out among you’–Frank was be­gin­ning to be very bit­ter now–’but she has done noth­ing to de­serve it. If there has been any fault it has been mine. But it is well now that we should un­der­stand each oth­er. My in­ten­tion is to mar­ry Mary if I can.’ And, so speak­ing, cer­tain­ly with­out due fil­ial re­spect, he turned to­wards the door.

‘Frank,’ said his moth­er, rais­ing her­self up with en­er­gy to make one last ap­peal. ‘Frank, do you wish to see me die of a bro­ken heart?’

‘You know, moth­er, I would wish to make you hap­py, if I could.’

‘If you wish to see me ev­er hap­py again, if you do not wish to see me sink bro­ken-​heart­ed to my grave, you must give up this mad idea, Frank,’–and now all La­dy Ara­bel­la’s en­er­gy came out. ‘Frank there is but one course left open to you. You MUST mar­ry mon­ey.’ And then La­dy Ara­bel­la stood up be­fore her son as La­dy Mac­beth might have stood, had La­dy Mac­beth lived to have a son of Frank’s years.

‘Miss Dun­sta­ble, I sup­pose,’ said Frank, scorn­ful­ly. ‘No, moth­er; I made an ass and worse than an ass of my­self once in that way, and I won’t do it again. I hate mon­ey.’

‘Oh, Frank!’

‘I hate mon­ey.’

‘But, Frank, the es­tate?’

‘I hate the es­tate–at least I shall hate it if I am ex­pect­ed to buy it at such a price as that. The es­tate is my fa­ther’s.’

‘Oh, no, Frank; it is not.’

‘It is in the sense I mean. He may do with it as he pleas­es; he will nev­er have a word of com­plaint from me. I am ready to go in­to a pro­fes­sion to-​mor­row. I’ll be a lawyer, or a doc­tor, or an en­gi­neer; I don’t care what.’ Frank, in his en­thu­si­asm, prob­ably over­looked some of the pre­lim­inary dif­fi­cul­ties. ‘Or I’ll take a farm un­der him, and earn my bread that way; but, moth­er, don’t talk to me any more about mar­ry­ing mon­ey.’ And, so say­ing, Frank left the room.

Frank, it will be re­mem­bered, was twen­ty-​one when he was first in­tro­duced to the read­er; he is now twen­ty-​two. It may be said that there was a great dif­fer­ence be­tween his char­ac­ter then and now. A year at that pe­ri­od will make a great dif­fer­ence; but the change has been, not in his char­ac­ter, but in his feel­ings.

Frank went out from his moth­er and im­me­di­ate­ly or­dered his black horse to be got ready for him. He would at once go over to Box­all Hill. He went him­self to the sta­bles to give his or­ders; and as he re­turned to get his gloves and whip he met Beat­rice in the cor­ri­dor.

‘Beat­rice,’ said he, ’step in here,’ and she fol­lowed him in­to his room. ‘I’m not go­ing to bear this any longer; I’m go­ing to Box­all Hill.’

‘Oh, Frank! how can you be so im­pru­dent?’

‘You, at any rate, have some de­cent feel­ing for Mary. I be­lieve you have some re­gard for her; and there­fore I tell you. Will you send her any mes­sage?’

‘Oh, yes; my best, best love; that is if you will see her; but, Frank, you are very fool­ish, very; and she will be in­finite­ly dis­tressed.’

‘Do not men­tion this, not at present; not that I mean you to make any se­cret of it. I shall tell my fa­ther ev­ery­thing. I’m off now!’ and then, pay­ing no at­ten­tion to her re­mon­strance, he turned down the stairs and was soon on horse­back.

He took the road to Box­all Hill, but he did not ride very fast: he did not go jaun­ti­ly as a jol­ly, thriv­ing woo­er; but mus­ing­ly, and of­ten with dif­fi­dence, med­itat­ing ev­ery now and then whether it would not be bet­ter for him to turn back: to turn back–but not from fear of his moth­er; not from pru­den­tial mo­tives; not be­cause that of­ten-​re­peat­ed les­son as to mar­ry­ing mon­ey was be­gin­ning to take ef­fect; not from such caus­es as these; but be­cause he doubt­ed how he might be re­ceived by Mary.

He did, it is true, think some­thing about his world­ly prospects. He had talked rather grandil­oquent­ly to his moth­er as to his hat­ing mon­ey, and hat­ing the es­tate. His moth­er’s nev­er-​ceas­ing world­ly cares on such sub­jects per­haps de­mand­ed that a lit­tle grandil­oquence should be op­posed to them. But Frank did not hate the es­tate; nor did he at all hate the po­si­tion of an En­glish coun­try gen­tle­man. Miss Dun­sta­ble’s elo­quence, how­ev­er, rang in his ears. For Miss Dun­sta­ble had an elo­quence of her own, even in her let­ters. ‘Nev­er let them talk you out of your own true, hon­est, hearty feel­ings,’ she had said. ‘Gre­shams­bury is a very nice place, I am sure; and I hope I shall see it some day; but all its green knolls are not half so nice, should not be half so pre­cious, as the puls­es of your own heart. That is your own es­tate, your own, your very own–your own and an­oth­er’s; what­ev­er may go to the mon­ey-​lenders, don’t send that there. Don’t mort­gage that, Mr Gre­sham.’

‘No,’ said Frank, pluck­ily, as he put his horse in­to a faster trot, ‘I won’t mort­gage that. They may do what they like with the es­tate; but my heart’s my own,’ and so speak­ing to him­self, al­most aloud, he turned a cor­ner of the road rapid­ly and came at once up­on the doc­tor.

‘Hal­lo, doc­tor! is that you?’ said Frank, rather dis­gust­ed.

‘What! Frank! I hard­ly ex­pect­ed to meet you here,’ said Dr Thorne, not much bet­ter pleased.

They were now not above a mile from Box­all Hill, and the doc­tor, there­fore, could not but sur­mise whith­er Frank was go­ing. They had re­peat­ed­ly met since Frank’s re­turn from Cam­bridge, both in the vil­lage and in the doc­tor’s house; but not a word had been said be­tween them about Mary be­yond what the mer­est cour­tesy had re­quired. Not that each did not love the oth­er suf­fi­cient­ly to make a full con­fi­dence be­tween them de­sir­able to both; but nei­ther had had the courage to speak out.

Nor had ei­ther of them the courage to do so now. ‘Yes,’ said Frank, blush­ing, ‘I am go­ing to La­dy Scatcherd’s. Shall I find the ladies at home?’

‘Yes; La­dy Scatcherd is there; but Sir Louis is there al­so–an in­valid: per­haps you would not wish to meet him.’

‘Oh! I don’t mind,’ said Frank, try­ing to laugh; ‘he won’t bite, I sup­pose?’

The doc­tor longed in his heart to pray to Frank to re­turn with him; not to go and make fur­ther mis­chief; not to do that which might cause a more bit­ter es­trange­ment be­tween him­self and the squire. But he had not the courage to do it. He could not bring him­self to ac­cuse Frank of be­ing in love with his niece. So af­ter a few more sense­less words on ei­ther side, words which each knew to be sense­less as he ut­tered them, they both rode on their own ways.

And then the doc­tor silent­ly, and al­most un­con­scious­ly, made such a com­par­ison be­tween Louis Scatcherd and Frank Gre­sham as Ham­let made be­tween the dead and live king. It was Hy­pe­ri­on to a satyr. Was it not as im­pos­si­ble that Mary should not love the one, as that she should love the oth­er? Frank’s of­fer of his af­fec­tions had at first prob­ably been but a boy­ish ebul­li­tion of feel­ing; but if it should now be, that this had grown in­to a man­ly and dis­in­ter­est­ed love, how could Mary re­main un­moved? What could her heart want more, bet­ter, more beau­ti­ful, more rich than such a love as this? Was he not per­son­al­ly all that a girl could like? Were not his dis­po­si­tion, mind, char­ac­ter, ac­quire­ments, all such as wom­en most de­light to love? Was it not im­pos­si­ble that Mary should be in­dif­fer­ent to him?

So med­itat­ed the doc­tor as he road along, with on­ly too true a knowl­edge of hu­man na­ture. Ah! it was im­pos­si­ble, quite im­pos­si­ble that Mary should be in­dif­fer­ent. She had nev­er been in­dif­fer­ent since Frank had ut­tered his first half-​jok­ing word of love. Such things are more im­por­tant to wom­en than they are to men, to girls than they are to boys. When Frank had first told her that he loved her; aye, months be­fore that, when he mere­ly looked his love, her heart had re­ceived the whis­per, had ac­knowl­edged the glance, un­con­scious as she was her­self, and re­solved as she was to re­buke his ad­vances. When, in her hear­ing, he had said soft noth­ings to Pa­tience Oriel, a hat­ed, ir­re­press­ible tear had gath­ered in her eye. When he had pressed in his warm, lov­ing grasp the hand which she had of­fered in him in to­ken of mere friend­ship, her heart had for­giv­en him the treach­ery, nay, al­most thanked him for it, be­fore her eyes or her words had been ready to re­buke him. When the ru­mour of his li­ai­son with Miss Dun­sta­ble reached her ears, when she heard of Miss Dun­sta­ble’s for­tune, she had wept, wept out­right, in her cham­ber–wept, as she said to her­self, to think that he could be so mer­ce­nary; but she had wept, as she should have said to her­self, at find­ing that he was so faith­less. Then, when she knew at last that this ru­mour was false, when she found that she was ban­ished from Gre­shams­bury for his sake, when she was forced to re­treat with her friend Pa­tience, how could she but love him, in that he was not mer­ce­nary? How could she not love him in that was so faith­ful?

It was im­pos­si­ble that she should not love him. Was he not the bright­est and the best of men that she had ev­er seen, or was like to see?–that she could pos­si­bly ev­er see, she would have said to her­self, could she have brought her­self to own the truth? And then, when she heard how true he was, how he per­sist­ed against fa­ther, moth­er, and sis­ters, how could it be that that should not be a mer­it in her eyes which was so great a fault in theirs? When Beat­rice, with would-​be solemn face, but with eyes beam­ing with fem­inine af­fec­tion, would grave­ly talk of Frank’s ten­der love as a ter­ri­ble mis­for­tune, as a mis­for­tune to them all, to Mary her­self as well as oth­ers, how could Mary do oth­er than love him? ‘Beat­rice is his sis­ter,’ she would say with­in her own mind, ‘oth­er­wise she would nev­er talk like this; were she not his sis­ter, she could not but know the val­ue of such love as this.’ Ah! yes; Mary did love him; love him with all the strength of her heart; and the strength of her heart was very great. And now by de­grees, in those lone­ly don­key-​rides at Box­all Hill, in those soli­tary walks, she was be­gin­ning to own to her­self the truth.

And now that she did own it, what should be her course? What should she do, how should she act if this loved one per­se­vered in his love? And, ah! what should she do, how should she act if he did not per­se­vere? Could it be that there should be hap­pi­ness in store for her? Was it not too clear that, let the mat­ter go how it would, there was no hap­pi­ness in store for her? Much as she might love Frank Gre­sham, she could nev­er con­sent to be his wife un­less the squire would smile on her as his daugh­ter-​in-​law. The squire had been all that was kind, all that was af­fec­tion­ate. And then, too, La­dy Ara­bel­la! As she thought of the La­dy Ara­bel­la a stern­er form of thought came across her brow. Why should La­dy Ara­bel­la rob her of her heart’s joy? What was La­dy Ara­bel­la that she, Mary Thorne, need quail be­fore her? Had La­dy Ara­bel­la stood on­ly in her way, La­dy Ara­bel­la, flanked by the De Cour­cy le­gion, Mary felt that she could have de­mand­ed Frank’s hand as her own be­fore them all with­out a blush of shame or a mo­ment’s hes­ita­tion. Thus, when her heart was all but ready to col­lapse with­in her, would she gain some lit­tle strength by think­ing of the La­dy Ara­bel­la.

‘Please, my la­dy, here be young squire Gre­sham,’ said one of the un­tu­tored ser­vants at Box­all Hill, open­ing La­dy Scatcherd’s lit­tle par­lour door as her la­dy­ship was amus­ing her­self by pulling down and turn­ing, and re-​fold­ing, and putting up again, a heap of house­hold linen which was kept in a huge press for the ex­press pur­pose of sup­ply­ing her with oc­cu­pa­tion.

La­dy Scatcherd, hold­ing a vast coun­ter­pane in her arms, looked back over her shoul­ders and per­ceived that Frank was in the room. Down went the coun­ter­pane on the ground, and Frank soon found him­self in the very po­si­tion which that use­ful ar­ti­cle had so late­ly filled.

‘Oh! Mas­ter Frank! oh, Mas­ter Frank!’ said her la­dy­ship, al­most in an hys­ter­ical fit of joy; and then she hugged and kissed him as she had nev­er kissed and hugged her own son since that son had first left the par­ent nest.

Frank bore it pa­tient­ly and with a mer­ry laugh. ‘But, La­dy Scatcherd,’ said he, ‘what will they all say? you for­get I am a man now,’ and he stooped his head as she again pressed her lips up­on his fore­head.

‘I don’t care what none of ‘em say,’ said her la­dy­ship, quite go­ing back to her old days; ‘I will kiss my own boy; so I will. Eh, but Mas­ter Frank, this is good on you. A sight of you is good for sore eyes; and my eyes have been sore enough since I saw you;’ and she put her apron up to wipe a tear away.

‘Yes,’ said Frank, gen­tly try­ing to dis­en­gage him­self, but not suc­cess­ful­ly: ‘yes, you have had a great loss, La­dy Scatcherd. I was so sor­ry when I heard of your grief.’

‘You al­ways had a soft, kind heart, Mas­ter Frank; so you had. God’s bless­ing on you! What a fine man you have grown! Deary me! Well, it seems as though it were on­ly just t’oth­er day like.’ And she pushed him a lit­tle from her, so that she might look the bet­ter in­to his face.

‘Well. Is it all right? I sup­pose you would hard­ly know me again now I’ve got a pair of whiskers?’

‘Know you! I should know you well if I saw but the heel of your foot. Why, what a head of hair you have got, and so dark too! but it doesn’t curl as it used once.’ And she stroked his hair, and looked in­to his eyes, and put her hand to his cheeks. ‘You’ll think me an old fool, Mas­ter Frank: I know that; but you may think what you like. If I live for the next twen­ty years you’ll al­ways be my own boy; so you will.’

By de­grees, slow de­grees, Frank man­aged to change the con­ver­sa­tion, and to in­duce La­dy Scatcherd to speak on some oth­er top­ic than his own in­fan­tine per­fec­tions. He af­fect­ed an in­dif­fer­ence as he spoke of her guest, which would have de­ceived no one but La­dy Scatcherd; but her it did de­ceive; and then he asked where Mary was.

‘She’s just gone out on her don­key–some­where about the place. She rides on a don­key most­ly ev­ery day. But you’ll stop and take a bit of din­ner with us? Eh, now do’ee, Mas­ter Frank.’

But Mas­ter Frank ex­cused him­self. He did not choose to pledge him­self to sit down to din­ner with Mary. He did not know in what mood they might re­turn with re­gard to each oth­er at din­ner-​time. He said, there­fore, that he would re­turn to the house again be­fore he went.

La­dy Scatcherd then be­gan mak­ing apolo­gies for Sir Louis. He was an in­valid; the doc­tor had been with him all the morn­ing, and he was not yet out of his room.

These apolo­gies Frank will­ing­ly ac­cept­ed, and then made his way as his could on to the lawn. A gar­den­er, of whom he in­quired, of­fered to go with him in pur­suit of Miss Thorne. This as­sis­tance, how­ev­er, he de­clined, and set forth in quest of her, hav­ing learnt what were her most usu­al haunts. Nor was he di­rect­ed wrong­ly; for af­ter walk­ing about twen­ty min­utes, he saw through the trees the legs of a don­key mov­ing on the green-​sward, at about two hun­dred yards from him. On that don­key doubt­less sat Mary Thorne.

The don­key was com­ing to­wards him; not ex­act­ly in a straight line, but so much so as to make it im­pos­si­ble that Mary should not see him if he stood still. He did stand still, and soon emerg­ing from the trees, Mary saw him all but close to her.

Her heart gave a leap with­in her, but she was so far mis­tress of her­self as to re­press any vis­ible sign of out­ward emo­tion. She did not fall from her don­key, or scream, or burst in­to tears. She mere­ly ut­tered the words, ‘Mr Gre­sham!’ in a tone of not un­nat­ural sur­prise.

‘Yes,’ said he, try­ing to laugh, but less suc­cess­ful than she had been sup­press­ing a show of feel­ing. ‘Mr Gre­sham! I have come over at last to pay my re­spects to you. You must have thought me very un­cour­te­ous not to do so be­fore.’

This she de­nied. She had not, she said, thought him at all un­civ­il. She had come to Box­all Hill to be out of the way; and, of course, had not ex­pect­ed any such for­mal­ities. As she ut­tered this she al­most blushed at the abrupt truth of what she was say­ing. But she was tak­en so much un­awares that she did not know how to make the truth oth­er than abrupt.

‘To be out of the way!’ said Frank. ‘And why should you want to be out of the way?’

‘Oh! there were rea­sons,’said she, laugh­ing. ‘Per­haps I have quar­relled dread­ful­ly with my un­cle.’

Frank at the present mo­ment had not about him a scrap of bad­inage. He had not a sin­gle easy word at his com­mand. He could not an­swer her with any­thing in guise of a joke; so he walked on, not an­swer­ing at all.

‘I hope all my friends at Gre­shams­bury are well,’ said Mary. ‘Is Beat­rice quite well?’

‘Quite well,’ said he.

‘And Pa­tience?’

‘What, Miss Oriel; yes, I be­lieve so. I haven’t seen her this day or two.’ How was it that Mary felt a lit­tle flush of joy, as Frank spoke in this in­dif­fer­ent way about Miss Oriel’s health?

‘I thought she was al­ways a par­tic­ular friend of yours,’ said she.

‘What! who? Miss Oriel? So she is! I like her amaz­ing­ly; so does Beat­rice.’ And then he walked about six steps in si­lence, pluck­ing up courage for the great at­tempt. He did pluck up his courage and then rushed at once to the at­tack.

‘Mary!’ said he, and as he spoke he put his hand on the don­key’s neck, and looked ten­der­ly in­to her face. He looked ten­der­ly, and, as Mary’s ear at once told her, his voice sound­ed more soft than it had ev­er sound­ed be­fore. ‘Mary, do you re­mem­ber the last time that we were to­geth­er?’

Mary did re­mem­ber it well. It was on that oc­ca­sion when he had treach­er­ous­ly held her hand; on that day when, ac­cord­ing to law, he had be­come a man; when he had out­raged all the pro­pri­ety of the De Cour­cy in­ter­est by of­fer­ing his love to Mary in Au­gus­ta’s hear­ing. Mary did re­mem­ber it well; but how was she to speak of it? ‘It was your birth­day, I think,’ said she.

‘Yes, it was my birth­day. I won­der whether you re­mem­ber what I said to you then?’

‘I re­mem­ber that you were very fool­ish, Mr Gre­sham.’

‘Mary, I have come to re­peat my fol­ly;–that is, if it be fol­ly. I told you then that I loved you, and I dare say that I did it awk­ward­ly, like a boy. Per­haps I may be just as awk­ward now; but you ought at any rate to be­lieve me when you find that a year has not al­tered me.’

Mary did not think him at all awk­ward, and she did be­lieve him. But how was she to an­swer him? She had not yet taught her­self what an­swer she ought to make if he per­sist­ed in his suit. She had hith­er­to been con­tent to run away from him; but she had done so be­cause she would not sub­mit to be ac­cused of the in­del­ica­cy of putting her­self in his way. She had re­buked him when he first spoke of his love; but she had done so be­cause she looked on what he said as a boy’s non­sense. She had schooled her­self in obe­di­ence to the Gre­shams­bury doc­trines. Was there any re­al rea­son, any rea­son found­ed on truth and hon­esty, why she should not be a fit­ting wife to Frank Gre­sham,–Fran­cis New­bold Gre­sham, of Gre­shams­bury, though he was, or was to be?’

He was well born–as well born as any gen­tle­man in Eng­land. She was base­ly born–as base­ly born as any la­dy could be. Was this suf­fi­cient bar against such a match? Mary felt in her heart that some twelve­month since, be­fore she knew what lit­tle she did now know of her own sto­ry, she would have said it was so. And would she in­dulge her own love by in­vei­gling him she loved in­to a base mar­riage? But then rea­son spoke again. What, af­ter all, was this blood of which she had taught her­self to think so much? Would she have been more hon­est, more fit to grace an hon­est man’s hearth­stone, had she been the le­git­imate de­scen­dant of a score of le­git­imate duchess­es? Was it not her first du­ty to think of him–of what would make him hap­py? Then of her un­cle–what he would ap­prove? Then of her­self–what would best be­come her mod­esty; her sense of hon­our? Could it be well that she should sac­ri­fice the hap­pi­ness of two per­sons to a the­oret­ic love of pure blood?

So she had ar­gued with­in her­self. Not now, sit­ting on the don­key, with Frank’s hand be­fore her on the tame brute’s neck; but on oth­er for­mer oc­ca­sions as she had rid­den along de­mure­ly among those trees. So she had ar­gued; but she had nev­er brought her ar­gu­ments to a de­ci­sion. All man­ner of thoughts crowd­ed on her to pre­vent her do­ing so. She would think of the squire, and re­solve to re­ject Frank; and would then re­mem­ber La­dy Ara­bel­la, and re­solve to ac­cept him. Her res­olu­tions, how­ev­er, were most ir­res­olute; and so, when Frank ap­peared in per­son be­fore her, car­ry­ing his heart in his hand, she did not know what an­swer to make to him. Thus it was with her as with so many oth­er maid­ens sim­ilar­ly cir­cum­stanced; at last she left it all to chance.

‘You ought at any rate, to be­lieve me,’ said Frank, ‘when you find that a year has not al­tered me.’

‘A year should have taught you to be wis­er,’said she. ‘You should have learnt by this time, Mr Gre­sham, that your lot and mine are not cast in the same mould; that our sta­tions in life are dif­fer­ent. Would your fa­ther or moth­er ap­prove of your even com­ing here to see me?’

Mary, as she spoke these sen­si­ble words, felt that they were ‘flat, stale, and un­prof­itable.’ She felt al­so, that they were not true in sense; that they did not come from her heart; that they were not such as Frank de­served at her hands, and she was ashamed of her­self.

‘My fa­ther I hope will ap­prove of it,’ said he. ‘That my moth­er should dis­ap­prove of it is a mis­for­tune which I can­not help; but on this point I will take no an­swer from my fa­ther or moth­er; the ques­tion is one too per­son­al to my­self. Mary, if you say that you will not, or can­not re­turn my love, I will go away;–not from here on­ly, but from Gre­shams­bury. My pres­ence shall not ban­ish you from all that you hold dear. If you can hon­est­ly say that I am noth­ing to you, can be noth­ing to you, I will then tell my moth­er that she may be at ease, and I will go away some­where and get over it as I may.’ The poor fel­low got so far, look­ing ap­par­ent­ly at the don­key’s ears, with hard­ly a gasp of hope in his voice, and he so far car­ried Mary with him that she al­so had hard­ly a gasp of hope in her heart. There he paused for a mo­ment, and then look­ing up in­to her face, he spoke but one word more. ‘But,’ said he–and there he stopped. It was clear­ly told in that ‘but’. Thus would he do if Mary would de­clare that she did not care for him. If, how­ev­er, she could not bring her­self so to de­clare, then was he ready to throw his fa­ther and moth­er to the winds; then would he stand his ground; then would he look all oth­er dif­fi­cul­ties in the face, sure that they might fi­nal­ly be over­come. Poor Mary! the whole onus of set­tling the mat­ter was thus thrown up­on her. She had on­ly to say that he was in­dif­fer­ent to her;–that was all.

If ‘all the blood of the Howards’ had de­pend­ed up­on it, she could not have brought her­self to ut­ter such a false­hood. In­dif­fer­ent to her, as he walked there by her don­key’s side, talk­ing thus earnest­ly of his love for her! Was he not to her like some god come from the heav­ens to make her blessed? Did not the sun shine up­on him with a ha­lo, so that he was bright as an an­gel? In­dif­fer­ent to her! Could the open unadul­ter­at­ed truth have been prac­ti­ca­ble for her, she would have de­clared her in­dif­fer­ence in terms that would tru­ly have as­ton­ished him. As it was, she found it eas­ier to say noth­ing. She bit her lips to keep her­self from sob­bing. She strug­gled hard, but in vain, to pre­vent her hands and feet from trem­bling. She seemed to swing up­on her don­key as though like to fall, and would have giv­en much to be up­on her own feet in the sward.

‘Si la je­unesse savait . . .’ There is so much in that wicked old French proverb! Had Frank known more about a wom­an’s mind–had he, that is, been forty-​two in­stead of twen­ty-​two he would at once have been sure of his game, and have felt that Mary’s si­lence told him all he wished to know. But then, had been forty-​two in­stead of twen­ty-​two, he would not have been so ready to risk the acres of Gre­shams­bury for the smiles of Mary Thorne.

‘If you can’t say one word to com­fort me, I will go,’ said he, dis­con­so­late­ly. ‘I made up my mind to tell you this, and so I came over. I told La­dy Scatcherd I should not stay–not even for din­ner.’

‘I did not know you were so hur­ried,’ said she, al­most in a whis­per.

On a sud­den he stood still, and pulling the don­key’s rein, caused him to stand still al­so. The beast re­quired very lit­tle per­sua­sion to be so guid­ed, and oblig­ing­ly re­mained meek­ly pas­sive.

‘Mary, Mary!’ said Frank, throw­ing his arms round her knees as she sat up­on her steed, and press­ing his face against her body. ‘Mary, you were al­ways hon­est; be hon­est now. I love you with all my heart. Will you be my wife?’

But still Mary said not a word. She no longer bit her lips; she was be­yond that, and was now us­ing all her ef­forts to pre­vent her tears from falling ab­so­lute­ly on her lover’s face. She said noth­ing. She could no more re­buke him now and send him from her than she could en­cour­age him. She could on­ly sit there shak­ing and cry­ing and wish­ing she was on the ground. Frank, on the whole, rather liked the don­key. It en­abled him to ap­proach some­what near­er to an em­brace than he might have found prac­ti­ca­ble had they both been on their feet. The don­key him­self was quite at his ease, and looked as though he was ap­prov­ing­ly con­scious of what was go­ing on be­hind his ears.

‘I have a right to a word, Mary; say, “Go”, and I will leave you at once.’

But Mary did not say ‘Go’. Per­haps she would have done so had she been able; but just at present she could say noth­ing. This came from her hav­ing failed to make up her mind in due time as to what course it would best be­come her to fol­low.

‘One word, Mary; one lit­tle word. There, if you will not speak, here is my hand. If you will have it, let it lie in yours;–if not, push it away.’ So say­ing, he man­aged to get the end of his fin­gers on to her palm, and there it re­mained un­re­pulsed. ‘La je­uness’ was be­gin­ning to get a les­son; ex­pe­ri­ence when du­ly sought af­ter some­times comes ear­ly in life.

In truth Mary had not strength to push the fin­gers away. ‘My love, my own, my own!’ said Frank, pre­sum­ing on this very neg­ative sign of ac­qui­es­cence. ‘My life, my own, my own Mary!’ and then the hand was caught hold of and was at his lips be­fore an ef­fort could be made to save it from such treat­ment.

‘Mary, look at me; say one word to me.’

There was a deep sigh, and then came the one word–’Oh, Frank!’

‘Mr Gre­sham, I hope I have the hon­our of see­ing you quite well,’ said a voice close to his ear. ‘I beg to say that you are wel­come to Box­all Hill.’ Frank turned round and in­stant­ly found him­self shak­ing hands with Sir Louis Scatcherd.

How Mary got over her con­fu­sion Frank nev­er saw, for he had enough to do to get over his own. He in­vol­un­tar­ily de­sert­ed Mary and be­gan talk­ing very fast to Sir Louis. Sir Louis did not once look at Miss Thorne, but walked back to­wards the house with Mr Gre­sham, sulky enough in tem­per, but still mak­ing some ef­fort to do the fine gen­tle­man. Mary, glad to be left alone, mere­ly oc­cu­pied her­self with sit­ting on the don­key; and the don­key, when he found that the two gen­tle­men went to­wards the house, for com­pa­ny’s sake and for his sta­ble’s sake, fol­lowed af­ter them.

Frank stayed but three min­utes in the house; gave an­oth­er kiss to La­dy Scatcherd, get­ting three in re­turn, and there­by in­finite­ly dis­gust­ing Sir Louis, shook hands, any­thing but warm­ly, with the young baronet, and just felt the warmth of Mary’s hand with­in his own. He felt al­so the warmth of her eyes’ last glance, and rode home a hap­py man.