Dr Thorne

CHAPTER XXXIII

A MORN­ING VIS­IT

It must be re­mem­bered that Mary, among her mis­eries, had to suf­fer this: that since Frank’s de­par­ture, now near­ly twelve months ago, she had not heard a word about him; or rather, she had on­ly heard that he was very much in love with some la­dy in Lon­don. This news reached her in a man­ner so cir­cuitous, and from such a doubt­ful source; it seemed to her to savour so strong­ly of La­dy Ara­bel­la’s pre­cau­tions, that she at­tribut­ed it at once to mal­ice, and blew it to the winds. It might not im­prob­ably be the case that Frank was un­true to her; but she would not take it for grant­ed be­cause she was now told so. It was more than prob­able that he should amuse him­self with some one; flirt­ing was his pre­vail­ing sin; and if he did flirt, the most would of course be made of it.

But she found it to be very des­olate to be thus left alone with­out a word of com­fort or a word of love; with­out be­ing able to speak to any one of what filled her heart; doubt­ing, nay, more than doubt­ing, be­ing all but sure that her pas­sion must ter­mi­nate in mis­ery. Why had she not obeyed her con­science and her bet­ter in­stinct int hat mo­ment when the ne­ces­si­ty for de­cid­ing had come up­on her? Why had she al­lowed him to un­der­stand that he was mas­ter of her heart? Did she not know that there was ev­ery­thing against such a mar­riage as that which was pro­posed? Had she not done wrong, very wrong, even to think of it? Had she not sinned deeply, against Mr Gre­sham, who had ev­er been so kind to her? Could she hope, was it pos­si­ble, that a boy like Frank should be true to his first love? And, if he were true, if he were ready to go to the al­tar with her to-​mor­row, ought she to al­low him to de­grade him­self by such a mar­riage?

There was, alas! some truth about the Lon­don la­dy. Frank had tak­en his de­gree, as ar­ranged, and had then gone abroad for the win­ter, do­ing the fash­ion­able things, go­ing up the Nile, cross­ing over to Mount Sinai, thence over the long desert to Jerusalem, and home by Dam­as­cus, Bey­rout, and Con­stantino­ple, bring­ing back a long beard, a red cap, and a chi­book, just as our fa­thers used to go through Italy and Switzer­land, and our grand­fa­thers to spend a sea­son in Paris. He had then re­mained for a cou­ple of months in Lon­don, go­ing through all the so­ci­ety which the De Cour­cys were able to open to him. And it was true that a cer­tain belle of the sea­son, of that sea­son and some oth­ers, had been cap­ti­vat­ed–for the tenth time–by the silken sheens of his long beard. Frank had prob­ably been more demon­stra­tive, per­haps, ev­er more sus­cep­ti­ble, than he should have been; and hence the ru­mour, which had all too will­ing­ly been for­ward­ed to Gre­shams­bury.

But young Gre­sham had al­so met an­oth­er la­dy in Lon­don, name­ly Miss Dun­sta­ble. Mary would in­deed have been grate­ful to Miss Dun­sta­ble, could she have know all that la­dy did for her. Frank’s love was nev­er al­lowed to flag. When he spoke of the dif­fi­cul­ties in his way, she twit­ted him by be­ing over­come by straws; and told him that no one was ev­er worth hav­ing who was afraid of ev­ery li­on he met in his path. When he spoke of mon­ey, she bade him earn it; and al­ways end­ed by of­fer­ing to smooth for him any re­al dif­fi­cul­ty which want of means might put in his way.

‘No,’ Frank used to say to him­self, when these of­fers were made, ‘I nev­er in­tend­ed to take her and her mon­ey to­geth­er; and, there­fore, I cer­tain­ly will nev­er take the mon­ey alone.’

A day or two af­ter Miss Oriel’s vis­it, Mary re­ceived the fol­low­ing note from Beat­rice.

‘DEAR­EST, DEAR­EST MARY,

‘I shall be so hap­py to see you, and will come to-​mor­row at twelve. I have asked mam­ma, and she says that, for once, she has no ob­jec­tion. You know it is not my fault that I have nev­er been with you; don’t you? Frank comes home on the twelfth. Mr Oriel wants the wed­ding to be on the first of Septem­ber; but that seems to be so very, very soon; doesn’t it? How­ev­er, mam­ma and pa­pa are all on his side. I won’t write about this, though, for we shall have such a de­li­cious talk. Oh, Mary! I have been so un­hap­py with­out you. ‘Ev­er your own af­fec­tion­ate, TRICHY’

Though Mary was de­light­ed at the idea of once more hav­ing her friend in her arms, there was, nev­er­the­less, some­thing in the let­ter which op­pressed her. She could not put up with the idea that Beat­rice should have per­mis­sion giv­en to come to her–just for once. She hard­ly wished to be seen by per­mis­sion. Nev­er­the­less, she did not refuse the prof­fered vis­it, and the first sight of Beat­rice’s face, the first touch of the first em­brace, dis­si­pat­ed for the mo­ment her anger.

And then Beat­rice ful­ly en­joyed the de­li­cious talk which she had promised her­self. Mary let her have her way, and for two hours all the de­lights and all the du­ties, all the com­forts and all the re­spon­si­bil­ities of a par­son’s wife were dis­cussed with al­most equal ar­dour on both sides. The du­ties and re­spon­si­bil­ities were not ex­act­ly those which too of­ten fall to the lot of the mis­tress of an En­glish vicarage. Beat­rice was not doomed to make her hus­band com­fort­able, to ed­ucate her chil­dren, dress her­self like a la­dy, and ex­er­cise open-​hand­ed char­ity on an in­come of two hun­dred pounds a year. Her du­ties and re­spon­si­bil­ities would have to spread them­selves over sev­en or eight times that amount of world­ly bur­den. Liv­ing al­so close to Gre­shams­bury, and not far from Cour­cy Cas­tle, she would have the full ad­van­tage and all the priv­ileges of coun­ty so­ci­ety. In fact, it was all couleur de rose, and so she chat­ted de­li­cious­ly with her friend.

But it was im­pos­si­ble that they should sep­arate with­out some­thing hav­ing been said as to Mary’s own lot. It would, per­haps, have been bet­ter that they should do so; but this was hard­ly with­in the com­pass of hu­man na­ture.

‘And Mary, you know, I shall be able to see you as of­ten as I like;–you and Dr Thorne, too, when I have a house of my own.’

Mary said noth­ing, but es­sayed to smile. It was but a ghast­ly at­tempt.

‘You know how hap­py that will make me,’ con­tin­ued Beat­rice. ‘Of course mam­ma won’t ex­pect me to be led by her then; if he likes it, there can be no ob­jec­tion; and he will like it, you may be sure of that.’

‘You are very kind, Trichy,’ said Mary; but she spoke in a tone very dif­fer­ent from that she would have used eigh­teen months ago.

‘Why, what is the mat­ter, Mary? Shan’t you be glad to come and see us?’

‘I do not know, dear­est; that must de­pend on cir­cum­stances. To see you, you your­self, your own dear, sweet, lov­ing face must al­ways be pleas­ant to me.’

‘And shan’t you be glad to see him?’

‘Yes, cer­tain­ly, if he loves you.’

‘Of course he loves me.’

‘All that alone would be pleas­ant enough, Trichy. But what if there should be cir­cum­stances which should still make us en­emies; should make your friends and my friends–friend, I should say, for I have on­ly one–should make them op­posed to each oth­er?’

‘Cir­cum­stances! What cir­cum­stances?’

‘You are go­ing to be mar­ried, Trichy, to the man you love; are you not?’

‘In­deed I am!’

‘And it is not pleas­ant? is it not a hap­py feel­ing?’

‘Pleas­ant! hap­py! yes, very pleas­ant; very hap­py. But, Mary, I am not at all in such a hur­ry as he is,’ said Beat­rice, nat­ural­ly think­ing of her own lit­tle af­fairs.

‘And, sup­pose I should wish to be mar­ried to the man that I love?’ Mary said this slow­ly and grave­ly, and as she spoke she looked her friend full in the face.

Beat­rice was some­what as­ton­ished, and for the mo­ment hard­ly un­der­stood. ‘I am sure I hope you will some day.’

‘No, Trichy; no, you hope the oth­er way. I love your broth­er; I love Frank Gre­sham; I love him quite as well, quite as warm­ly, as you love Caleb Oriel.’

‘Do you?’ said Beat­rice, star­ing with all her eyes, and giv­ing one long sigh, as this new sub­ject for sor­row was so dis­tinct­ly put be­fore her.

‘It that so odd?’ said Mary. ‘You love Mr Oriel, though you have been in­ti­mate with him hard­ly more than two years. Is it so odd that I should love your broth­er, whom I have known al­most all my life?’

‘But, Mary, I thought it was al­ways un­der­stood be­tween us that–that–I mean that you were not to care about him; not in the way of lov­ing him, you know–I thought you al­ways said so–I have al­ways told mam­ma so as if it came from your­self.’

‘Beat­rice, do not tell any­thing to La­dy Ara­bel­la as though it came from me; I do not want any­thing to be told to her, ei­ther of me or from me. Say what you like to me your­self; what­ev­er you say will not anger me. In­deed, I know what you would say–and yet I love you. Oh, I love you, Trichy–Trichy, I do love you so much! Don’t turn away from me!’

There was such a mix­ture in Mary’s man­ner of ten­der­ness and al­most fe­roc­ity, that poor Beat­rice could hard­ly fol­low her. ‘Turn away from you, Mary! no nev­er; but this does make me un­hap­py.’

‘It is bet­ter that you should know it all, and then you will not be led in­to fight­ing my bat­tles again. You can­not fight them so that I should win; I do love your broth­er; love him tru­ly, fond­ly, ten­der­ly. I would wish to have him for my hus­band as you wish to have Mr Oriel.’

‘But, Mary, you can­not mar­ry him!’

‘Why not?’ said she, in a loud voice. ‘Why can I not mar­ry him? If the priest says a bless­ing over us, shall we not be mar­ried as well as you and your hus­band?’

‘But you know he can­not mar­ry un­less his wife shall have mon­ey.’

‘Mon­ey–mon­ey; and he is to sell him­self for mon­ey? Oh, Trichy! do not you talk about mon­ey. It is hor­ri­ble. But, Trichy, I will grant it–I can­not mar­ry him; but still, I love him. He has a name, a place in the world, and for­tune, fam­ily, high blood, po­si­tion, ev­ery­thing. He has all this, and I have noth­ing. Of course I can­not mar­ry him. But yet I do love him.’

‘Are you en­gaged to him, Mary?’

‘He is not en­gaged to me; but I am to him.’

‘Oh, Mary, that is im­pos­si­ble!’

‘It is not im­pos­si­ble: it is the cast–I am pledged to him; but he is not pledged to me.’

‘But, Mary, don’t look at me in that way. I do not quite un­der­stand you. What is the good of your be­ing en­gaged if you can­not mar­ry him?’

‘Good! there is no good. But can I help it, if I love him? Can I make my­self not love him by just wish­ing it? Oh, I would do it if I could. But now you will un­der­stand why I shake my head when you talk of com­ing to your house. Your ways and my ways must be dif­fer­ent.’

Beat­rice was star­tled, and, for a time, si­lenced. What Mary said of the dif­fer­ence of their ways was quite true. Beat­rice had dear­ly loved her friend, and had thought of her with af­fec­tion through all this long pe­ri­od in which they had been sep­arat­ed; but she had giv­en her love and her thoughts on the un­der­stand­ing, as it were, that they were in uni­son as to the im­pro­pri­ety of Frank’s con­duct.

She had al­ways spo­ken, with a grave face, of Frank and his love as of a great mis­for­tune, even to Mary her­self; and her pity for Mary had been found­ed on the con­vic­tion of her in­no­cence. Now all those ideas had to be al­tered. Mary owned her fault, con­fessed her­self to be guilty of all that La­dy Ara­bel­la so fre­quent­ly laid to her charge, and con­fessed her­self anx­ious to com­mit ev­ery crime as to which Beat­rice had been ev­er so ready to de­fend her.

Had Beat­rice up to this dreamed that Mary was in love with Frank, she would doubt­less have sym­pa­thized with her more or less soon­er or lat­er. As it was, is was be­yond all doubt that she would soon sym­pa­thize with her. But, at the mo­ment, the sud­den­ness of the dec­la­ra­tion seemed to hard­en her heart, and she for­got, as it were, to speak ten­der­ly to her friend.

She was silent, there­fore, and dis­mayed; and looked as though she thought that her ways and Mary’s ways must be dif­fer­ent.

Mary saw all that was pass­ing in the oth­er’s mind: no, not all; all the hos­til­ity, the dis­ap­point­ment, the dis­ap­proval, the un­hap­pi­ness, she did see; but not the un­der-​cur­rent of love, which was strong enough to well up and drown all these, if on­ly time could be al­lowed for it to do so.

‘I am so glad to have told you,’ said Mary, curb­ing her­self, ‘for de­ceit and hypocrisy are de­testable.’

‘It was a mis­un­der­stand­ing, not de­ceit,’ said Beat­rice.

‘Well, now we un­der­stand each oth­er; now you know that I have a heart with­in me, which like those of some oth­ers has not al­ways been un­der my own con­trol. La­dy Ara­bel­la be­lieves that I am in­trigu­ing to be the mis­tress of Gre­shams­bury. You, at any rate, will not think that of me. If it could be dis­cov­ered to-​mor­row that Frank were not the heir, I might have some chance of hap­pi­ness.’

‘But, Mary–’

‘Well?’

‘You say you love him.’

‘Yes; I do say so.’

‘But if he does not love you, will you cease to do so?’

‘If I have a fever, I will get rid of it if I can; in such a case I must do so, or die.’

‘I fear,’ con­tin­ued Beat­rice, ‘you hard­ly know, per­haps do not think, what is Frank’s re­al char­ac­ter. He is not made to set­tle down ear­ly in life; even now, I be­lieve he is at­tached to some la­dy in Lon­don, whom, of course, he can­not mar­ry.’

Beat­rice had said this in per­fect true­ness of heart. She had heard of Frank’s new love-​af­fair, and be­liev­ing what she had heard, thought it best to tell the truth. But the in­for­ma­tion was not of a kind to qui­et Mary’s spir­it.

‘Very well,’ said she, ‘let it be so. I have noth­ing to say against it.’

‘But are you not prepar­ing wretched­ness and un­hap­pi­ness for your­self?’

‘Very like­ly.’

‘Oh, Mary, do not be so cold with me! you know how de­light­ed I should be to have you for a sis­ter-​in-​law, if on­ly it were pos­si­ble.’

‘Yes, Trichy; but it is im­pos­si­ble, is it not? Im­pos­si­ble that Fran­cis Gre­sham of Gre­shams­bury should dis­grace him­self by mar­ry­ing such a poor crea­ture as I am. Of course I know it; of course, I am pre­pared for un­hap­pi­ness and mis­ery. He can amuse him­self as he likes with me or oth­ers–with any­body. It is his priv­ilege. It is quite enough to say that he is not made for set­tling down. I know my own po­si­tion;–and yet I love him.’

‘But, Mary, has he asked you to be his wife? If so–’

‘You ask home-​ques­tions, Beat­rice. Let me ask you one; has he ev­er told you that he has done so?’

At this mo­ment Beat­rice was not dis­posed to re­peat all that Frank had said. A year ago, be­fore he went away, he had told his sis­ter a score of times that he meant to mar­ry Mary Thorne if she would have him; but Beat­rice now looked on all that as idle, boy­ish vapour­ing. The pity was, that Mary should have looked on it dif­fer­ent­ly.

‘We will each keep our se­cret,’ said Mary. ‘On­ly re­mem­ber this: should Frank mar­ry to-​mor­row, I shall have no ground for blam­ing him. He is free as far I as am con­cerned. He can take the Lon­don la­dy if he likes. You may tell him so from me. But, Trichy, what else I have told you, I have told you on­ly.’

‘Oh, yes!’ said Beat­rice, sad­ly; ‘I shall say noth­ing of it to any­body. It is very sad, very, very; I was so hap­py when I came here, and now I am so wretched.’ This was the end of that de­li­cious talk to which she had looked for­ward with so much ea­ger­ness.

‘Don’t be wretched about me, dear­est; I shall get through it. I some­times think I was born to be un­hap­py, and that un­hap­pi­ness agrees with me best. Kiss me now, Trichy, and don’t be wretched any more. You owe it to Mr Oriel to be as hap­py as the day is long.’

And then they part­ed.

Beat­rice, as she went out, saw Dr Thorne in his lit­tle shop on the right-​hand side of the pas­sage deeply en­gaged in some deroga­to­ry branch of an apothe­cary’s me­chan­ical trade; mix­ing a dose, per­haps, for a lit­tle child. She would have passed him with­out speak­ing, if she could have been sure of do­ing so with­out no­tice, for her heart was full, and her eyes were red with tears; but it was so long since she had been in his house that she was more than or­di­nar­ily anx­ious not to ap­pear un­cour­te­ous or un­kind to him.

‘Good morn­ing, doc­tor,’ she said, chang­ing her coun­te­nance as best she might, and at­tempt­ing a smile.

‘Ah, my fairy!’ said he, leav­ing his vil­lain­ous com­pounds, and com­ing out to her; ‘and you, too, are about to be­come a steady old la­dy.’

‘In­deed, I am not, doc­tor; I don’t mean to be ei­ther steady or old, for the next ten years. But who has told you? I sup­pose Mary has been a traitor.’

‘Well, I will con­fess Mary was the traitor. But hadn’t I a right to be told, see­ing how of­ten I have brought you sug­ar-​plums in my pock­et? But I wish you joy with all my heart–with all my heart. Oriel is an ex­cel­lent, good fel­low.’

‘Is he not, doc­tor?’

‘An ex­cel­lent, good fel­low. I nev­er heard but of one fault that he had.’

‘What was that one fault, Doc­tor Thorne?’

‘He thought that cler­gy­men should not mar­ry. But you have cured that, and now he’s per­fect.’

‘Thank you, doc­tor. I de­clare that you say the pret­ti­est things of all my friends.’

‘And none of your friends wish pret­ti­er things for you. I do con­grat­ulate you, Beat­rice, and hope you may be hap­py with the man you have cho­sen;’ and tak­ing both her hands in his, he pressed them warm­ly, and bade God bless her.

‘Oh, doc­tor! I do so hope the time will come when we shall all be friends again.’

‘I hope it as well, my dear. But let it come, or let it not come, my re­gard for you will be the same:’ and then she part­ed from him al­so, and went her way.

Noth­ing was spo­ken of that evening be­tween Dr Thorne and his niece ex­cept­ing Beat­rice’s fu­ture hap­pi­ness; noth­ing, at least, hav­ing ref­er­ence to what had passed that morn­ing. But on the fol­low­ing morn­ing, cir­cum­stances led to Frank Gre­sham’s name be­ing men­tioned.

At the usu­al break­fast-​hour the doc­tor en­tered the par­lour with a ha­rassed face. He had an open let­ter in his hand, and it was at once clear to Mary that he was go­ing to speak on some sub­ject that vexed him.

‘That un­for­tu­nate fel­low is again in trou­ble. Here is a let­ter from Greyson.’ Greyson was a Lon­don apothe­cary, who had been ap­point­ed as med­ical at­ten­dant to Sir Louis Scatcherd, and whose re­al busi­ness con­sist­ed in keep­ing a watch on the baronet, and re­port­ing to Dr Thorne when any­thing was very much amiss. ‘Here is a let­ter from Greyson; he has been drunk for the last three days, and is now laid up in a ter­ri­bly ner­vous state.’

‘You won’t go up to town again; will you, un­cle?’

‘I hard­ly know what to do. No, I think not. He talks of com­ing down here to Gre­shams­bury.’

‘Who, Sir Louis?’

‘Yes, Sir Louis. Greyson says that he will be down as soon as he can get out of his room.’

‘What! to this house?’

‘What oth­er home can he come to?’

‘Oh, un­cle! I hope not. Pray, pray do not let him come here.’

‘I can­not pre­vent it, dear. I can­not shut my door on him.’

They sat down to break­fast, and Mary gave him his tea in si­lence. ‘I am go­ing over to Box­all Hill be­fore din­ner,’ said he. ‘Have you any mes­sage to send to La­dy Scatcherd?’

‘Mes­sage! no, I have no mes­sage; not es­pe­cial­ly: give her my love, of course,’ she said list­less­ly. And then, as though a thought had sud­den­ly struck her, she spoke with more en­er­gy. ‘But, couldn’t I go to Box­all Hill again? I should be so de­light­ed.’

‘What! to run away from Sir Louis? No, dear­est, we will have no more run­ning away. He will prob­ably al­so go to Box­all Hill, and he could an­noy you much more there than he can here.’

‘But, un­cle, Mr Gre­sham will be home on the twelfth,’ she said, blush­ing.

‘What! Frank?’

‘Yes. Beat­rice said he was to be here on the twelfth.’

‘And would you run away from him too, Mary?’

‘I do not know: I do not know what to do.’

‘No; we will have no more run­ning away: I am sor­ry that you ev­er did so. It was my fault, al­to­geth­er my fault; but it was fool­ish.’

‘Un­cle, I am not hap­py here.’ As she said this, she put down the cup which she had held, and, lean­ing her el­bows on the ta­ble, rest­ed her fore­head on her hands.

‘And would you be hap­pi­er at Box­all Hill? It is not the place that makes the hap­pi­ness.’

‘No, I know that; it is not the place. I do not look to be hap­py in any place; but I should be qui­eter, more tran­quil else­where than here.’

‘I al­so some­times think that it would be bet­ter for us to take up our staves and walk away from Gre­shams­bury;–leave it al­to­geth­er, and set­tle else­where; miles, miles, miles away from here. Should you like that, dear­est?’

Miles, miles, miles away from Gre­shams­bury! There was some­thing in the sound that fell very cold on Mary’s ears, un­hap­py as she was. Gre­shams­bury had been so dear to her; in spite of all that had passed, was still so dear to her! Was she pre­pared to take up her staff, as her un­cle said, and walk forth from the place with the full un­der­stand­ing that she was to re­turn to it no more; with a mind re­solved that there should be an in­sep­ara­ble gulf be­tween her and its in­hab­itants? Such she knew was the pro­posed na­ture of the walk­ing away of which her un­cle spoke. So she sat there, rest­ing on her arms, and gave no an­swer to the ques­tion that had been put to her.

‘No, we will stay here a while yet,’ said her un­cle. ‘It may come to that, but this is not the time. For one sea­son longer let us face–I will not say our en­emies; I can­not call any­body my en­emy who bears the name of Gre­sham.’ And then he went on for a mo­ment with his break­fast. ‘So Frank will be here on the twelfth?’

‘Yes, un­cle.’

‘Well, dear­est, I have no ques­tions to ask you; no di­rec­tions to give. I know how good you are, and how pru­dent; I am anx­ious on­ly for your hap­pi­ness; not at all–’

‘Hap­pi­ness, un­cle, is out of the ques­tion.’

‘I hope not. It is nev­er out of the ques­tion, nev­er can be out of the ques­tion. But, as I was say­ing, I am quite sat­is­fied your con­duct will be good, and, there­fore, I have no ques­tions to ask. We will re­main here; and, whether good or evil come, we will not be ashamed to show our faces.’

She sat for a while again silent; col­lect­ing her courage on the sub­ject that was near­est her heart. She would have giv­en the world that he should ask her ques­tions; but she could not bid him to do so; and she found it im­pos­si­ble to talk open­ly to him about Frank un­less he did so. ‘Will he come here?’ at last she said, in a low-​toned voice.

‘Who? He, Louis? Yes, I think that in all prob­abil­ity he will.’

‘No; but Frank,’ she said, in a still low­er voice.

‘Ah! my dar­ling, that I can­not tell; but will it be well that he should come here?’

‘I do not know,’ she said. ‘No, I sup­pose not. But, un­cle, I don’t think he will come.’

She was now sit­ting on a so­fa, away from the ta­ble, and he got up sat down be­side her, and took her hands in his. ‘Mary,’ said he, ‘you must be strong now; strong to en­dure, not to at­tack. I think that you have that strength; but, if not, per­haps it will be bet­ter that we should go away.’

‘I will be strong,’ said she, ris­ing up and go­ing to­wards the door. ‘Nev­er mind me, un­cle; don’t fol­low me; I will be strong. It will be base, cow­ard­ly, mean to run away; very base in me to make you do so.’

‘No, dear­est, not so; it will be the same to me.’

‘No,’ said she, ‘I will not run away from La­dy Ara­bel­la. And, as for him–if he loves this oth­er one, he shall hear no re­proach from me. Un­cle, I will be strong;’ and run­ning back to him, she threw her arms around him and kissed him. And, still re­strain­ing her tears, she got safe­ly to her bed­room. In what way she may there have shown her strength, it would not be well for us to in­quire.