Dr Thorne

CHAPTER XXXIX

WHAT THE WORLD SAYS ABOUT BLOOD

‘Beat­rice,’ said Frank, rush­ing sud­den­ly in­to his sis­ter’s room, ‘I want you to do me one es­pe­cial favour.’ This was three or four days af­ter he had spo­ken to Mary Thorne. Since that time he had spo­ken to none of his fam­ily on the sub­ject; but he was on­ly post­pon­ing from day to day the task of telling his fa­ther. He had now com­plet­ed his round of vis­its to the ken­nel, mas­ter hunts­man, and sta­bles of the coun­ty hunt, and was at lib­er­ty to at­tend to his own af­fairs. So he had de­cid­ed on speak­ing to the squire that very day; but he first made his re­quest to his sis­ter.

‘I want you to do me one es­pe­cial favour.’ The day for Beat­rice’s mar­riage had now been fixed, and it was not to be very dis­tant. Mr Oriel had urged that their hon­ey­moon trip would lose half its de­lights if they did not take ad­van­tage of the fine weath­er; and Beat­rice had noth­ing to al­lege in an­swer. The day had just been fixed, and when Frank ran in­to her room with his spe­cial re­quest, she was not in a hu­mour to refuse him any­thing.

‘If you wish me to be at your wed­ding, you must do it.’

‘Wish you to be there! You must be there, of course. Oh, Frank! what do you mean? I’ll do any­thing you ask; if it is not to go to the moon, or any­thing of that sort.’

Frank was too much in earnest to joke. ‘You must have Mary for one of your brides­maids,’ he said. ‘Now, mind; there may be some dif­fi­cul­ty, but you must in­sist on it. I know what has been go­ing on; but it is not to be borne that she should be ex­clud­ed on such a day as that. You that have been like sis­ters all your lives till a year ago.’

‘But, Frank–’

‘Now, Beat­rice, don’t have any buts; say that you will do it, and it will be done: I am sure Oriel will ap­prove, and so will my fa­ther.’

‘But, Frank, you won’t hear me.’

‘Not if you make ob­jec­tions; I have set my heart on your do­ing it.’

‘But I had set my heart on the same thing.’

‘Well?’

‘And I went to Mary on pur­pose; and told her just as you tell me now, that she must come. I meant to make mam­ma un­der­stand that I could not be hap­py un­less it were so; but Mary pos­itive­ly re­fused.’

‘Re­fused! What did she say?’

‘I could not tell you what she said; in­deed, it would not be right if I could; but she pos­itive­ly de­clined. She seemed to feel, that af­ter all that had hap­pened, she nev­er could come to Gre­shams­bury again.’

‘Fid­dle­stick!’

‘But, Frank, those are her feel­ings; and, to tell the truth, I could not com­bat them. I know she is not hap­py; but time will cure that. And, to tell you the truth, Frank–’

‘It was be­fore I came back that you asked her, was it not?’

‘Yes; just the day be­fore you came, I think.’

‘Well, it’s al­tered now. I have seen her since that.’

‘Have you Frank?’

‘What do you take me for? Of course, I have. The very first day I went to her. And now, Beat­rice, you may be­lieve me or not, as you like; but if I ev­er mar­ry, I shall mar­ry Mary Thorne; and if she ev­er mar­ries, I think she may mar­ry me. At any rate, I have her promise. And now, you can­not be sur­prised that I should wish her to be at your wed­ding; or that I should de­clare, that if she is ab­sent, I will be ab­sent. I don’t want any se­crets, and you may tell my moth­er if you like it–and all the De Cour­cys too, for any­thing I care.’

Frank had ev­er been used to com­mand his sis­ters: and they, es­pe­cial­ly Beat­rice, had ev­er been used to obey. On this oc­ca­sion, she was well in­clined to do so, if she on­ly knew how. She again re­mem­bered how Mary had once sworn to be at her wed­ding, to be near her, and to touch her–even though all the blood of the De Cour­cys should be crowd­ed be­fore the al­tar rail­ings.

‘I should be hap­py that she should be there; but what am I to do, Frank, if she re­fus­es? I have asked her, and she has re­fused.’

‘Go to her again; you need not have any scru­ples with her. Do not I tell you she will be your sis­ter? Not come here again to Gre­shams­bury! Why, I tell you that she will be liv­ing here while you are liv­ing there at the par­son­age, for years and years to come.’

Beat­rice promised that she would go to Mary again, and that she would en­deav­our to talk her moth­er over if Mary would con­sent to come. But she could not yet make her­self be­lieve that Mary Thorne would ev­er be mis­tress of Gre­shams­bury. It was so in­dis­pens­ably nec­es­sary that Frank should mar­ry mon­ey! Be­sides, what were these hor­rid ru­mours which were now be­com­ing rife as to Mary’s birth; ru­mours more hor­rid than any which had yet been heard.

Au­gus­ta had said hard­ly more than the truth when she spoke of her fa­ther be­ing bro­ken-​heart­ed by his debts. His trou­bles were be­com­ing al­most too many for him; and Mr Gaze­bee, though no doubt he was an ex­cel­lent man of busi­ness, did not seem to lessen them. Mr Gaze­bee, in­deed, was con­tin­ual­ly point­ing out how much he owed, and in what a quag­mire of dif­fi­cul­ties he had en­tan­gled him­self. Now, to do Mr Um­ble­by jus­tice, he had nev­er made him­self dis­agree­able in this man­ner.

Mr Gaze­bee had been doubt­less right, when he de­clared that Sir Louis Scatcherd had not him­self the pow­er to take any steps hos­tile to the squire; but Sir Louis had al­so been right, when he boast­ed that, in spite of his fa­ther’s will, he could cause oth­ers to move in the mat­ter. Oth­ers did move, and were mov­ing, and it be­gan to be un­der­stood that a moi­ety, at least, of the re­main­ing Gre­shams­bury prop­er­ty must be sold. Even this, how­ev­er, would by no means leave the squire in undis­turbed pos­ses­sion of the oth­er moi­ety. And thus, Mr Gre­sham was near­ly bro­ken-​heart­ed.

Frank had now been at home a week, and his fa­ther had not as yet spo­ken to him about the fam­ily trou­bles; nor had a word as yet been said be­tween them as to Mary Thorne. It had been agreed that Frank should go away for twelve months, in or­der that he might for­get her. He had been away the twelve­month, and had now re­turned, not hav­ing for­got­ten her.

It gen­er­al­ly hap­pens, that in ev­ery house­hold, one sub­ject of im­por­tance oc­cu­pies it at a time. The sub­ject of im­por­tance now most­ly thought of in the Gre­shams­bury house­hold, was the mar­riage of Beat­rice. La­dy Ara­bel­la had to sup­ply the trousseau for her daugh­ter; the squire had to sup­ply the mon­ey for the trousseau; Mr Gaze­bee had the task of ob­tain­ing the mon­ey for the squire. While this was go­ing on, Mr Gre­sham was not anx­ious to talk to his son, ei­ther about his own debts or his son’s love. There would be time for these things when the mar­riage-​feast was over.

So thought the fa­ther, but the mat­ter was pre­cip­itat­ed by Frank. He al­so had put off the dec­la­ra­tion which he had to make, part­ly from a wish to spare the squire, but part­ly al­so with a view to spare him­self. We have all some of that cow­ardice which in­duces us to post­pone an in­evitably evil day. At this time the dis­cus­sions as to Beat­rice’s wed­ding were fre­quent in the house, and at one of them Frank had heard his moth­er re­peat the names of the pro­posed brides­maids. Mary’s name was not among them, and hence had arisen the at­tack on his sis­ter.

La­dy Ara­bel­la had had her rea­son for nam­ing the list be­fore her son; but she over­shot her mark. She wished to show him how Mary was for­got­ten at Gre­shams­bury; but she on­ly in­spired him with a re­solve that she should not be for­got­ten. He ac­cord­ing­ly went to his sis­ter; and then, the sub­ject be­ing full on his mind, he re­solved at once to dis­cuss it with his fa­ther.

‘Sir, are you at leisure for five min­utes?’ he said, en­ter­ing the room in which the squire was ac­cus­tomed to sit ma­jes­ti­cal­ly, to re­ceive his ten­ants, scold his de­pen­dants, and in which, in for­mer hap­py days, he had al­ways ar­ranged the meets of the Barset­shire hunt.

Mr Gre­sham was quite at leisure: when was he not so? But had he been im­mersed in the deep­est busi­ness of which he was ca­pa­ble, he would glad­ly have put it aside at his son’s in­stance.

‘I don’t like to have any se­cret from you, sir,’ said Frank; ‘nor, for the mat­ter of that, from any­body else’–the any­body else was in­tend­ed to have ref­er­ence to his moth­er–’and, there­fore, I would rather tell you at once what I have made up my mind to do.’

Frank’s ad­dress was very abrupt, and he felt it was so. He was rather red in the face, and his man­ner was flut­tered. He had quite made up his mind to break the whole af­fair to his fa­ther; but he had hard­ly made up his mind as to the best mode of do­ing so.

‘Good heav­ens, Frank! what do you mean? you are not go­ing to do any­thing rash? What is it you mean, Frank?’

‘I don’t think it is rash,’ said Frank.

‘Sit down, my boy; sit down. What is it that you say you are go­ing to do?’

‘Noth­ing im­me­di­ate­ly, sir,’ said he, rather abashed; ‘but as I have made up my mind about Mary Thorne–’

‘Oh, about Mary,’ said the squire, al­most re­lieved.

And then Frank, in vol­uble lan­guage, which he hard­ly, how­ev­er, had quite un­der his com­mand, told his fa­ther all that had passed be­tween him and Mary. ‘You see, sir,’ said he, ‘that it is fixed now, and can­not be al­tered. Nor must it be al­tered. You asked me to go away for twelve months, and I have done so. It has made no dif­fer­ence, you see. As to our means of liv­ing, I am quite will­ing to do any­thing that may be best and most pru­dent. I was think­ing, sir, of tak­ing a farm some­where near here, and liv­ing on that.’

The squire sat quite silent for some mo­ments af­ter this com­mu­ni­ca­tion had been made to him. Frank’s con­duct, as a son, in this spe­cial mat­ter of his love, how was it pos­si­ble for him to find fault? He him­self was al­most as fond of Mary as of a daugh­ter; and, though he too would have been de­sirous that his son should re­ceive the es­tate from its em­bar­rass­ment by a rich mar­riage, he did not at all share La­dy Ara­bel­la’s feel­ings on the sub­ject. No Count­ess de Cour­cy had ev­er en­graved it on the tablets of his mind that the world would come to ru­in if Frank did not mar­ry mon­ey. Ru­in there was, and would be, but it had been brought about by no sin of Frank’s.

‘Do you re­mem­ber about her birth, Frank?’ he said, at last.

‘Yes, sir; ev­ery­thing. She told me all she knew; and Dr Thorne fin­ished the sto­ry.’

‘And what do you think of it?’

‘It is a pity and a mis­for­tune. It might, per­haps, have been a rea­son why you or my moth­er should not have had Mary in the house many years ago; but it can­not make any dif­fer­ence now.’

Frank had not meant to lean so heav­ily on his fa­ther; but he did so. The sto­ry had nev­er been told to La­dy Ara­bel­la; was not even known to her now, pos­itive­ly, and on good au­thor­ity. But Mr Gre­sham had al­ways known it. If Mary’s birth was so great a stain up­on her, why had he brought her in­to his house among his chil­dren?

‘It is a mis­for­tune, Frank; a very great mis­for­tune. It will not do for you and me to ig­nore birth; too much of the val­ue of one’s po­si­tion de­pends on it.’

‘But what was Mr Mof­fat’s birth?’ said Frank, al­most with scorn; ‘or what Miss Dun­sta­ble’s?’ he would have added, had it not been that his fa­ther had not been con­cerned in that sin of wed­ding him to the oil of Lebanon.

‘True, Frank. But yet, what you would mean to say is not true. We must take the world as we find it. Were you to mar­ry a rich heiress, were her birth even as low as that of poor Mary–’

‘Don’t call her poor Mary, fa­ther; she is not poor. My wife will have a right to take rank in the world, how­ev­er she was born.’

‘Well,–poor in that way. But were she an heiress, the world would for­give her birth on ac­count of her wealth.’

‘The world is very com­plaisant, sir.’

‘You must take it as you find it, Frank. I on­ly say that such is the fact. If Por­lock were to mar­ry the daugh­ter of a shoe­black, with­out a far­thing, he would make a mesal­liance; but if the daugh­ter of the shoe­black had half a mil­lion of mon­ey, no­body would dream of say­ing so. I am stat­ing no opin­ion of my own: I am on­ly giv­ing you the world’s opin­ion.’

‘I don’t give a straw for the world.’

‘That is a mis­take, my boy; you do care for it, and would be very fool­ish if you did not. What you mean is, that, on this par­tic­ular point, you val­ue your love more than the world’s opin­ion.’

‘Well, yes, that is what I mean.’

But the squire, though he had been very lu­cid in his def­ini­tion, had not got near­er to his ob­ject; had not even yet as­cer­tained what his own ob­ject was. This mar­riage would be ru­inous to Gre­shams­bury; and yet, what was he to say against it, see­ing that the ru­in had been his fault, and not his son’s?

‘You could let me have a farm; could you not, sir? I was think­ing of about six or sev­en hun­dred acres. I sup­pose it could be man­aged some­how?’

‘A farm?’ said the fa­ther, ab­stract­ed­ly.

‘Yes, sir. I must do some­thing for my liv­ing. I should make less of a mess of that than any­thing else. Be­sides, it would take such a time to be an at­tor­ney, or a doc­tor, or any­thing of that sort.’

Do some­thing for his liv­ing! And was the heir of Gre­shams­bury come to this–the heir and his on­ly son? Where­as, he, the squire, had suc­ceed­ed at an ear­li­er age than Frank’s to an un­em­bar­rassed in­come of four­teen thou­sand pounds a year! The re­flec­tion was very hard to bear.

‘Yes: I dare say you could have a farm:’ and then he threw him­self back in his chair, clos­ing his eyes. Then, af­ter a while, rose again, and walked hur­ried­ly about the room. ‘Frank,’ he said, at last, stand­ing op­po­site to his son, ‘I won­der what you think of me?’

‘Think of you, sir?’ ejac­ulat­ed Frank.

‘Yes; what do you think of me, for hav­ing thus ru­ined you. I won­der whether you hate me?’

Frank, jump­ing up from his chair, threw his arms round his fa­ther’s neck. ‘Hate you, sir? How can you speak so cru­el­ly? You know well that I love you. And, fa­ther, do not trou­ble your­self about the es­tate for my sake. I do not care for it; I can be just as hap­py with­out it. Let the girls have what is left, and I will make my own way in the world, some­how. I will go to Aus­tralia; yes, sir, that will be the best. I and Mary will both go. No­body will care about her birth there. But, fa­ther, nev­er say, nev­er think, that I do not love you!’

The squire was too much moved to speak at once, so he sat down again and cov­ered his face with his hands. Frank went on pac­ing the room, till, grad­ual­ly, his first idea re­cov­ered pos­ses­sion of his mind, and the re­mem­brance of his fa­ther’s grief fad­ed away. ‘May I tell Mary,’ he said at last, ‘that you con­sent to our mar­riage?’

But the squire was not pre­pared to say this. He was pledged to his wife to do all that he could to op­pose it; and he him­self thought, that if any­thing could con­sum­mate the fam­ily ru­in, it would be this mar­riage.

‘I can­not say that, Frank; I can­not say that. What would you both live on? It would be mad­ness.’

‘We would go to Aus­tralia,’ an­swered he, bit­ter­ly. ‘I have just said so.’

‘Oh, no, my boy; you can­not do that. You must not throw up the old place al­to­geth­er. There is no oth­er one but you, Frank; and we have lived here now for so many, many years.’

‘But if we can­not live here any longer, fa­ther?’

‘But for this scheme of yours, we might do. I will give up ev­ery­thing to you, the man­age­ment of the es­tate, the park, all the land we have in hand, if you will give up this fa­tal scheme. For, Frank, it is fa­tal. You are on­ly twen­ty-​three; why should you be in such a hur­ry to mar­ry?’

‘You mar­ried at twen­ty-​one, sir.’

Frank was again se­vere on his fa­ther, un­wit­ting­ly. ‘Yes, I did,’ said Mr Gre­sham; ‘and see what has come of it! Had I wait­ed ten years longer, how dif­fer­ent would ev­ery­thing have been! No, Frank, I can­not con­sent to such a mar­riage; nor will your moth­er.’

‘It is your con­sent that I ask, sir; and I am ask­ing for noth­ing but your con­sent.’

‘It would be sheer mad­ness; mad­ness for you both. My own Frank, my dear boy, do not drive me to dis­trac­tion! Give it up for four years.’

‘Four years!’

‘Yes; for four years. I ask it as a per­son­al favour; as an obli­ga­tion to my­self, in or­der that we may be saved from ru­in; you, your moth­er, and sis­ters, your fam­ily name, and the old house. I do not talk about my­self; but were such a mar­riage to take place, I should be driv­en to de­spair.’

Frank found it very hard to re­sist his fa­ther, who now had hold of his hand and arm, and was thus half re­tain­ing him, and half em­brac­ing him. ‘Frank, say that you will for­get this for four years–say for three years.’

But Frank would not say so. To post­pone his mar­riage for four years, or for three, seemed to him to be tan­ta­mount to giv­ing up Mary al­to­geth­er; and he would not ac­knowl­edge that any one had the right to de­mand of him to do that.

‘My word is pledged, sir,’ he said.

‘Pledged! Pledged to whom?’

‘To Miss Thorne.’

‘But I will see her, Frank;–and her un­cle. She was al­ways rea­son­able. I am sure she will not wish to bring ru­in on her old friends at Gre­shams­bury.’

‘Her old friends at Gre­shams­bury have done but lit­tle late­ly to de­serve her con­sid­er­ation. She has been treat­ed shame­ful­ly. I know it has not been by you, sir; but I must say so. She has al­ready been treat­ed shame­ful­ly; but I will not treat her false­ly.’

‘Well, Frank, I can say no more to you. I have de­stroyed the es­tate which should have been yours, and I have no right to ex­pect you should re­gard what I say.’

Frank was great­ly dis­tressed. He had not any feel­ing of an­imos­ity against his fa­ther with ref­er­ence to the prop­er­ty, and would have done any­thing to make the squire un­der­stand this, short of giv­ing up his en­gage­ment to Mary. His feel­ing rather was, that, as each had a case against the oth­er, they should cry quits; that he should for­give his fa­ther for his bad man­age­ment, on con­di­tion that he him­self was to be for­giv­en with re­gard to his de­ter­mined mar­riage. Not that he put it ex­act­ly in that shape, even to him­self; but could he have un­rav­elled his own thoughts, he would have found that such was the web on which they were based.

‘Fa­ther, I do re­gard what you say; but you would not have me be false. Had you dou­bled the prop­er­ty in­stead of less­en­ing it, I could not re­gard what you say any more.’

‘I should be able to speak in a very dif­fer­ent tone; I feel that, Frank.’

‘Do not feel it any more, sir; say what you wish, as you would have said it un­der any oth­er cir­cum­stances; and pray be­lieve this, the idea nev­er oc­curs to me, that I have ground for com­plaint as re­gards the prop­er­ty; nev­er. What­ev­er trou­bles we may have, do not let that trou­ble you.’

Soon af­ter this Frank left him. What more was there that could be said be­tween them? They could not be of one ac­cord; but even yet it might not be nec­es­sary that they should quar­rel. He went out, and roamed by him­self through the grounds, rather more in med­ita­tion than was his wont.

If he did mar­ry, how was he to live? He talked of a pro­fes­sion; but had he meant to do as oth­ers do, who make their way in pro­fes­sions, he should have thought of that a year or two ago!–or, rather, have done more than think of it. He spoke al­so of a farm, but even that could not be had in a mo­ment; nor, if it could, would it pro­duce a liv­ing. Where was his cap­ital? Where was his skill? and he might have asked al­so, where the in­dus­try so nec­es­sary for such a trade? He might have set his fa­ther at de­fi­ance, and if Mary were equal­ly head­strong with him­self, he might mar­ry her. But, what then?

As he walked slow­ly about, cut­ting off the daisies with his stick, he met Mr Oriel, go­ing up to the house, as was now his cus­tom, to dine there and spend the evening, close to Beat­rice.

‘How I en­vy you, Oriel!’ he said. ‘What would I not give to have such a po­si­tion in the world as yours!’

‘Thou shalt not cov­et a man’s house, nor his wife,’ said Mr Oriel; ‘per­haps it ought to have been added, nor his po­si­tion.’

‘It wouldn’t have made much dif­fer­ence. When a man is tempt­ed, the Com­mand­ments, I be­lieve, do not go for much.’

‘Do they not, Frank? That’s a dan­ger­ous doc­trine; and one which, if you had my po­si­tion, you would hard­ly ad­mit. But what makes you so much out of sorts? Your own po­si­tion is gen­er­al­ly con­sid­ered about the best which the world has to give.’

‘Is it? Then let me tell you that the world has very lit­tle to give. What can I do? Where can I turn? Oriel, if there be an emp­ty, ly­ing hum­bug in the world, it is the the­ory of high birth and pure blood which some of us en­deav­our to main­tain. Blood, in­deed! If my fa­ther had been a bak­er, I should know by this time where to look for my liveli­hood. As it is, I am told of noth­ing but my blood. Will my blood ev­er get me half a crown?’

And then the young demo­crat walked on again in soli­tude, leav­ing Mr Oriel in doubt as to the ex­act line of ar­gu­ment which he had meant to in­cul­cate.