Dr Thorne

CHAPTER XXX

POST PRAN­DI­AL

Frank rode home a hap­py man, cheer­ing him­self, as suc­cess­ful lovers do cheer them­selves, with the bril­lian­cy of his late ex­ploit: nor was it till he had turned the cor­ner in­to the Gre­shams­bury sta­bles that he be­gan to re­flect what he would do next. It was all very well to have in­duced Mary to al­low his three fin­gers to lie half a minute in her soft hand; the hav­ing done so might cer­tain­ly be suf­fi­cient ev­idence that he had over­come one of the li­ons in his path; but it could hard­ly be said that all his dif­fi­cul­ties were now smoothed. How was he to make fur­ther progress?

To Mary, al­so, the same ideas no doubt oc­curred–with many oth­ers. But, then, it was not for Mary to make any progress in the mat­ter. To her at least be­longed this pas­sive com­fort, that at present no act hos­tile to the De Cour­cy in­ter­est would be ex­pect­ed from her. All that she could do would be to tell her un­cle so much as it was fit­ting that he should know. The do­ing this would doubt­less be in some de­gree dif­fi­cult; but it was not prob­able that there would be much dif­fer­ence, much of any­thing but lov­ing anx­iety for each oth­er, be­tween her and Dr Thorne. One oth­er thing, in­deed, she must do; Frank must be made to un­der­stand what her birth had been. ‘This,’ she said to her­self, ‘will give him an op­por­tu­ni­ty of re­tract­ing what he has done should he choose to avail him­self of it. It is well he should have such op­por­tu­ni­ty.’

But Frank had more than this to do. He had told Beat­rice that he would make no se­cret of his love, and he ful­ly re­solved to be as good as his word. To his fa­ther he owed an un­re­served con­fi­dence; and he was ful­ly mind­ed to give it. It was, he knew, al­to­geth­er out of the ques­tion that he should at once mar­ry a por­tion­less girl with­out his fa­ther’s con­sent; prob­ably out of the ques­tion that he should do so even with it. But he would, at any rate, tell his fa­ther, and then de­cide as to what should be done next. So re­solv­ing, he put his black horse in­to the sta­ble and went in­to din­ner. Af­ter din­ner he and his fa­ther would be alone.

Yes; af­ter din­ner he and his fa­ther would be alone. He dressed him­self hur­ried­ly, for the din­ner-​bell was al­most on the stroke as he en­tered the house. He said this to him­self once and again; but when the meats and the pud­dings, and then the cheese were borne away, as the de­canters were placed be­fore his fa­ther, and La­dy Ara­bel­la sipped her one glass of claret, and his sis­ters ate their por­tion of straw­ber­ries, his press­ing anx­iety for the com­ing in­ter­view be­gan to wax some­what dull.

His moth­er and sis­ters, how­ev­er, ren­dered him no as­sis­tance by pro­long­ing their stay. With un­wont­ed as­siduity he pressed a sec­ond glass of claret on his moth­er. But La­dy Ara­bel­la was not on­ly tem­per­ate in her habits, but al­so at the present mo­ment very an­gry with her son. She thought that he had been to Box­all Hill, and was on­ly wait­ing a prop­er mo­ment to cross-​ques­tion him stern­ly on the sub­ject. Now she de­part­ed, tak­ing her train of daugh­ters with her.

‘Give me one big goose­ber­ry,’ said Ni­na, as she squeezed her­self in un­der her broth­er’s arm, pri­or to mak­ing her re­treat. Frank would will­ing­ly have giv­en her a dozen of the biggest, had she want­ed them; but hav­ing got the one, she squeezed her­self out again and scam­pered off.

The squire was very cheery this evening; from what cause can­not now be said. Per­haps he had suc­ceed­ed in ne­go­ti­at­ing a fur­ther loan, thus tem­porar­ily sprin­kling a drop of wa­ter over the ev­er-​ris­ing dust of his dif­fi­cul­ties.

‘Well, Frank, what have you been af­ter to-​day? Pe­ter told me you had the black horse out,’ said he, push­ing the de­canter to his son. ‘Take my ad­vice, my boy, and don’t give him too much sum­mer road-​work. Legs won’t stand it, let them be ev­er so good.’

‘Why, sir, I was obliged to go out to-​day, and there­fore, it had to be ei­ther the old mare or the young horse.’

‘Why didn’t you take Ram­ble?’ Now Ram­ble was the squire’s own sad­dle hack, used for farm sur­vey­ing, and oc­ca­sion­al­ly for go­ing to cov­er.

‘I shouldn’t think of do­ing that, sir.’

‘My dear boy, he is quite at your ser­vice; for good­ness’ sake do let me have a lit­tle wine, Frank–quite at your ser­vice; any rid­ing I have now is af­ter the hay­mak­ers, and that’s all on the grass.’

‘Thank’ee, sir. Well, per­haps I will take a turn out of Ram­ble should I want it.’

‘Do, and pray, pray take care of that black horse’s legs. He’s turn­ing out more of a horse than I took him to be, and I should be sor­ry to see him in­jured. Where have you been to-​day?’

‘Well, fa­ther, I have some­thing to tell you.’

‘Some­thing to tell me!’ and then the squire’s hap­py and gay look, which had been on­ly ren­dered more hap­py and more gay by his as­sumed anx­iety about the black horse, gave place to a heav­iness of vis­age which ac­ri­mo­ny and mis­for­tune had made so ha­bit­ual to him. ‘Some­thing to tell me!’ Any grave words like these al­ways pre­saged some mon­ey dif­fi­cul­ty to the squire’s ears. He loved Frank with the ten­der­est love. He would have done so un­der al­most any cir­cum­stances; but, doubt­less, that love had been made more pal­pa­ble to him­self by the fact that Frank had been a good son as re­gards mon­ey–not ex­igeant as was La­dy Ara­bel­la, or self­ish­ly reck­less as was his nephew Lord Por­lock. But now Frank must be in some dif­fi­cul­ty about mon­ey. This was his first idea. ‘What is it, Frank; you have sel­dom had any­thing to say that has not been pleas­ant for me to hear?’ And then the heav­iness of vis­age again gave way for a mo­ment as his eye fell up­on his son.

‘I have been to Box­all Hill, sir.’

The tenor of his fa­ther’s thoughts was changed in an in­stant; and the dread of im­me­di­ate tem­po­rary an­noy­ance gave place to true anx­iety for his son. He, the squire, had been no par­ty to Mary’s ex­ile from his own do­main; and he had seen with pain that she had now a sec­ond time been driv­en from her home: but he had nev­er hith­er­to ques­tioned the ex­pe­di­en­cy of sep­arat­ing his son from Mary Thorne. Alas! it had be­come too nec­es­sary–too nec­es­sary through his own de­fault–that Frank should mar­ry mon­ey!

‘At Box­all Hill, Frank! Has that been pru­dent? Or, in­deed, has it been gen­er­ous to Miss Thorne, who has been driv­en there, as it were, by your im­pru­dence?’

‘Fa­ther, it is well that we should un­der­stand each oth­er about this–’

‘Fill your glass, Frank;’ Frank me­chan­ical­ly did as he was told, and passed the bot­tle.

‘I should nev­er for­give my­self were I to de­ceive you, or keep any­thing from you.’

‘I be­lieve it is not in your na­ture to de­ceive me, Frank.’

‘The fact is, sir, that I have made up my mind that Mary Thorne shall be my wife–soon­er or lat­er, that is, un­less, of course, she should ut­ter­ly refuse. Hith­er­to, she has ut­ter­ly re­fused me. I be­lieve I may now say that she has ac­cept­ed me.’

The squire sipped his claret, but at the mo­ment said noth­ing. There was a qui­et, man­ly, but yet mod­est de­ter­mi­na­tion about his son that he had hard­ly no­ticed be­fore. Frank had be­come legal­ly of age, legal­ly a man, when he was twen­ty-​one. Na­ture, it seems, had post­poned the cer­emo­ny till he was twen­ty-​two. Na­ture of­ten does post­pone the cer­emo­ny even to a much lat­er age;–some­times, al­to­geth­er for­gets to ac­com­plish it.

The squire con­tin­ued to sip his claret; he had to think over the mat­ter a while be­fore he could an­swer a state­ment so de­lib­er­ate­ly made by his son.

‘I think I may say so,’ con­tin­ued Frank, with per­haps un­nec­es­sary mod­esty. ‘She is so hon­est that, had she not in­tend­ed it, she would have said so hon­est­ly. Am I right, fa­ther, in think­ing that, as re­gards Mary, per­son­al­ly, you would not re­ject her as a daugh­ter-​in-​law?’

‘Per­son­al­ly!’ said the squire, glad to have the sub­ject pre­sent­ed to him in a view that en­abled him to speak out. ‘Oh, no; per­son­al­ly, I should not ob­ject to her, for I love her dear­ly. She is a good girl. I do be­lieve she is a good girl in ev­ery re­spect. I have al­ways liked her; liked to see her about the house. But–’

‘I know what you would say, fa­ther.’ This was rather more than the squire knew him­self. ‘Such a mar­riage is im­pru­dent.’

‘It is more than that, Frank; I fear that is im­pos­si­ble.’

‘Im­pos­si­ble! No, fa­ther; it is not im­pos­si­ble.’

‘It is im­pos­si­ble, Frank, in the usu­al sense. What are you to live up­on? What would you do with your chil­dren? You would not wish to see your wife dis­tressed and com­fort­less.’

‘No, I should not like to see that.’

‘You would not wish to be­gin life as an em­bar­rassed man and end it as a ru­ined man. If you were now to mar­ry Miss Thorne such would, I fear, doubt­less be your lot.’

Frank caught at the word ‘now’. ‘I don’t ex­pect to mar­ry im­me­di­ate­ly. I know that would be im­pru­dent. But I am pledged, fa­ther, and I cer­tain­ly can­not go back. And now that I have told you all this, what is your ad­vice to me?’

The fa­ther again sat silent, still sip­ping his wine. There was noth­ing in his son that he could be ashamed of, noth­ing that he could meet with anger, noth­ing that he could not love; but how should he an­swer him? The fact was, that the son had more in him than the fa­ther; this his mind and spir­it were of a cal­ibre not to be op­posed suc­cess­ful­ly by the mind and the spir­it of the squire.

‘Do you know Mary’s his­to­ry?’ said Mr Gre­sham, at last; ‘the his­to­ry of her birth?’

‘Not a word of it,’ said Frank. ‘I did not know she had a his­to­ry.’

‘Nor does she know it; at least, I pre­sume not. But you should know it now. And, Frank, I will tell it you; not to turn you from her–not with that ob­ject, though I think that, to a cer­tain ex­tent, it should have that ef­fect. Mary’s birth was not such that would be­come your wife, and be ben­efi­cial to your chil­dren.’

‘If so, fa­ther, I should have known it soon­er. Why was she brought here among us?’

‘True, Frank. The fault is mine; mine and your moth­er’s. Cir­cum­stances brought it all about years ago, when it nev­er oc­curred to us that all this would arise. But I will tell you her his­to­ry. And, Frank, re­mem­ber this, though I tell it you as a se­cret, a se­cret to be kept from all the world but one, you are quite at lib­er­ty to let the doc­tor know I have told you. In­deed, I shall be care­ful to let him know my­self should it ev­er be nec­es­sary that he and I should speak to­geth­er as to this en­gage­ment.’ The squire then told his son the whole sto­ry of Mary’s birth, as it is known to the read­er.

Frank sat silent, look­ing very blank; he al­so had, as had ev­ery Gre­sham, a great love for his pure blood. He had said to his moth­er that he hat­ed mon­ey, that he hat­ed the es­tate; but he would have been very slow to say, even in his warmest op­po­si­tion to her, that he hat­ed the roll of the fam­ily pedi­gree. He loved it dear­ly, though he sel­dom spoke of it;–as men of good fam­ily sel­dom do speak of it. It is one of those pos­ses­sions which to have is suf­fi­cient. A man hav­ing it need not boast of what he has, or show it off be­fore the world. But on that ac­count he val­ues it more. He had re­gard­ed Mary as a cut­ting du­ly tak­en from the Ul­lathorne tree; not, in­deed, as a graft­ing branch, full of flow­er, just sep­arat­ed from the par­ent stalk, but as be­ing not a whit the less tru­ly en­dowed with the pure sap of that ven­er­able trunk. When, there­fore, he heard her true his­to­ry he sat awhile dis­mayed.

‘It is a sad sto­ry,’ said the fa­ther.

‘Yes, sad enough,’ said Frank, ris­ing from his chair and stand­ing with it be­fore him, lean­ing on the back of it. ‘Poor Mary, poor mary! She will have to learn it some day.’

‘I fear so, Frank;’ and then there was again a few mo­ments’ si­lence.

‘To me, fa­ther, it is told too late. It can now have no ef­fect on me. In­deed,’ said he, sigh­ing as he spoke, but still re­liev­ing him­self by the very sigh, ‘it could have had no ef­fect had I learned it ev­er so soon.’

‘I should have told you be­fore,’ said the fa­ther; ‘cer­tain­ly I ought to have done so.’

‘It would have been no good,’ said Frank. ‘Ah, sir, tell me this: who were Miss Dun­sta­ble’s par­ents? What was that fel­low Mof­fat’s fam­ily?’

This was per­haps cru­el of Frank. The squire, how­ev­er, made no an­swer to the ques­tion. ‘I have thought it right to tell you,’ said he. ‘I leave all the com­men­tary to your­self. I need not tell you what your moth­er will think.’

‘What did she think of miss Dun­sta­ble’s birth?’ said he, again more bit­ter­ly than be­fore. ‘No, sir,’ he con­tin­ued, af­ter a fur­ther pause. ‘All that can make no change; none at any rate now. It can’t make my love less, even if it could have pre­vent­ed it. Nor, even, could it do so–which it can’t in the least, not in the least–but could it do so, it could not break my en­gage­ment. I am now en­gaged to Mary Thorne.’

And then he again re­peat­ed his ques­tion, ask­ing for his fa­ther’s ad­vice un­der the present cir­cum­stances. The con­ver­sa­tion was a very long one, as long as to dis­ar­range all La­dy Ara­bel­la’s plans. She had de­ter­mined to take her son more strin­gent­ly to task that very evening; and with this ob­ject had en­sconced her­self in the small draw­ing-​room which had for­mer­ly been used for a sim­ilar pur­pose by the au­gust count­ess her­self. Here she now sat, hav­ing de­sired Au­gus­ta and Beat­rice, as well as the twins, to beg Frank to go to her as soon as he should come out of the din­ing-​room. Poor la­dy! there she wait­ed till ten o’clock,–tea­less. There was not much of the Blue­beard about the squire; but he had suc­ceed­ed in mak­ing it un­der­stood through the house­hold that he was not to be in­ter­rupt­ed by mes­sages from his wife dur­ing the post-​pran­di­al hour, which, though no top­er, he loved so well.

As a pe­ri­od of twelve months will now have to be passed over, the up­shot of this long con­ver­sa­tion must be told in as few words as pos­si­ble. The fa­ther found it im­prac­ti­ca­ble to talk his son out of his in­tend­ed mar­riage; in­deed, he hard­ly at­tempt­ed to do so by any di­rect per­sua­sion. He ex­plained to him that it was im­pos­si­ble that he should mar­ry at once, and sug­gest­ed that he, Frank, was very young.

‘You mar­ried, sir, be­fore you were one-​and-​twen­ty,’ said Frank. Yes and re­pent­ed be­fore I was two-​and-​twen­ty. So did not say the squire.

He sug­gest­ed that Mary should have time to as­cer­tain what would be her un­cle’s wish­es, and end­ed by in­duc­ing Frank to promise, that af­ter tak­ing his de­gree in Oc­to­ber he would go abroad for some months, and that he would not in­deed re­turn to Gre­shams­bury un­til he was three-​and-​twen­ty.

‘He may per­haps for­get her,’ said the fa­ther to him­self.

‘He thinks that I shall for­get her,’ said Frank to him­self at the same time; ‘but he does not know me.’

When La­dy Ara­bel­la at last got hold of her son she found that the time for her preach­ing had ut­ter­ly gone by. He told he, al­most with sang-​froid, what his plans were; and when she came to un­der­stand them, and to un­der­stand al­so what had tak­en place at Box­all Hill, she could not blame the squire for what he had done. She al­so said to her­self, more con­fi­dent­ly than the squire had done, that Frank would quite for­get Mary be­fore the year was out. ‘Lord Buck­ish,’ said she to her­self, re­joic­ing­ly, ‘is now with the am­bas­sador at Paris’–Lord Buck­ish was her nephew–’and with him Frank will meet wom­en that are re­al­ly beau­ti­ful–wom­en of fash­ion. When with Lord Buck­ish he will soon for­get Mary Thorne.’

But not on this ac­count did she change her re­solve to fol­low up to the fur­thest point her hos­til­ity to the Thornes. She was ful­ly en­abled now to do so, for Dr Fill­grave was al­ready re­in­stat­ed at Gre­shams­bury as her med­ical ad­vis­er.

One oth­er short vis­it did Frank pay to Box­all Hill, and one in­ter­view had he with Dr Thorne. Mary told him all she knew of her own sad his­to­ry, and was an­swered on­ly by a kiss,–a kiss ab­so­lute­ly not in any way by her to be avoid­ed; the first, and on­ly one, that had ev­er yet reached her lips from his. And then he went away.

The doc­tor told him the full sto­ry. ‘Yes,’ said Frank, ‘I knew it all be­fore. Dear Mary, dear­est Mary! Don’t you, doc­tor, teach your­self to be­lieve that I shall for­get her.’ And then al­so he went his way from him–went his way al­so from Gre­shams­bury, and was ab­sent for the full pe­ri­od of the al­lot­ted ban­ish­ment–twelve months, name­ly, and a day.