Dr Thorne

CHAPTER XLI

DOC­TOR THORNE WON’T IN­TER­FERE

At this pe­ri­od there was, as it were, a truce to the or­di­nary lit­tle skir­mish­es which had been so cus­tom­ary be­tween La­dy Ara­bel­la and the squire. Things had so fall­en out, that they nei­ther of them had must spir­it for a con­test; and, more­over, on that point which at the present mo­ment was most thought of by both of them, they were strange­ly in uni­son. For each of them was anx­ious to pre­vent the threat­ened mar­riage of their on­ly son.

It must, more­over, be re­mem­bered, that La­dy Ara­bel­la had car­ried a great point in oust­ing Mr Yates Um­ble­by and putting the man­age­ment of the es­tate in­to the hands of her own par­ti­san. But then the squire had not done less in get­ting rid of Fill­grave and re­in­stat­ing Dr Thorne in pos­ses­sion of the fam­ily in­valids. The loss­es, there­fore, had been equal; the vic­to­ries equal; and there was a mu­tu­al ob­ject.

And it must be con­fessed, al­so, that La­dy Ara­bel­la’s taste for grandeur was on the de­cline. Mis­for­tune was com­ing too near to her to leave her much anx­iety for the gai­eties of a Lon­don sea­son. Things were not far­ing well with her. When her el­dest daugh­ter was go­ing to mar­ry a man of for­tune, and a mem­ber of Par­lia­ment, she had thought noth­ing of de­mand­ing a thou­sand pounds or so for the ex­traor­di­nary ex­pens­es in­ci­dent to such an oc­ca­sion. But now, Beat­rice was to be­come the wife of a parish par­son, and even that was thought to be a for­tu­nate event; she had, there­fore, no heart for splen­dour.

‘The qui­eter we can do it the bet­ter,’ she wrote to her count­ess-​sis­ter. ‘Her fa­ther want­ed to give him at least a thou­sand pounds; but Mr Gaze­bee has told me con­fi­den­tial­ly that it lit­er­al­ly can­not be done at the present mo­ment! Ah, my dear Rosi­na! how things have been man­aged! If one or two of the girls will come over, we shall all take it as a favour. Beat­rice would think it very kind of them. But I don’t think of ask­ing you or Amelia.’ Amelia was al­ways the grand­est of the De Cour­cy fam­ily, be­ing al­most on an equal­ity with–nay, in some re­spect su­pe­ri­or to–the count­ess her­self. But this, of course, was be­fore the days of the place in Sur­rey.

Such, and so hum­ble be­ing the present tem­per of the la­dy of Gre­shams­bury, it will not be thought sur­pris­ing that she and Mr Gre­sham should at last come to­geth­er in their ef­forts to re­claim their son.

At first La­dy Ara­bel­la urged up­on the squire the du­ty of be­ing very peremp­to­ry and very an­gry. ‘Do as oth­er fa­thers do in such cas­es. Make him un­der­stand that he will have no al­lowance to live on.’ ‘He un­der­stands that well enough,’ said Mr Gre­sham.

‘Threat­en to cut him off with a shilling,’ said her la­dy­ship, with spir­it. ‘I haven’t a shilling to cut him off with,’ an­swered the squire, bit­ter­ly.

But La­dy Ara­bel­la her­self soon per­ceived, that this line would not do. As Mr Gre­sham him­self con­fessed, his own sins against his son had been too great to al­low of his tak­ing a high hand with him. Be­sides, Mr Gre­sham was not a man who could ev­er be se­vere with a son whose in­di­vid­ual con­duct had been so good as Frank’s. This mar­riage, was, in his view, a mis­for­tune to be avert­ed if pos­si­ble,–to be avert­ed by any pos­si­ble means; but, as far as Frank was con­cerned, it was to be re­gard­ed rather as a mono­ma­nia than a crime.

‘I did feel so cer­tain that he would have suc­ceed­ed with Miss Dun­sta­ble,’ said the moth­er, al­most cry­ing.

‘I thought it im­pos­si­ble but that at his age a twelve­month knock­ing about the world would cure him,’ said the fa­ther.

‘I nev­er heard of a boy be­ing so ob­sti­nate about a girl,’ said the moth­er. ‘I’m sure he didn’t get it from the De Cour­cys:’ and then, again, they talked it over in all its bear­ings.

‘But what are they to live up­on?’ said La­dy Ara­bel­la, ap­peal­ing, as it were, to some im­per­son­ation of rea­son. ‘That’s what I want him to tell me. What are they to live up­on?’

‘I won­der whether De Cour­cy could get him in­to some em­bassy?’ said the fa­ther. ‘He does talk of a pro­fes­sion.’

‘What! with the girl and all?’ asked La­dy Ara­bel­la with hor­ror, alarmed at the idea of such an ap­peal be­ing made to her no­ble broth­er.

‘No; but be­fore he mar­ries. He might be bro­ken of it that way.’

‘Noth­ing will break him,’ said the wretched moth­er; ‘noth­ing–noth­ing. For my part, I think that he is pos­sessed. Why was she brought here? Oh, dear! oh, dear! Why was she ev­er brought in­to this house?’

This last ques­tion Mr Gre­sham did not think it nec­es­sary to an­swer. That evil had been done, and it would be use­less to dis­pute it. ‘I’ll tell you what I’ll do,’ said he. ‘I’ll speak to the doc­tor my­self.’

‘It’s not the slight­est use,’ said La­dy Ara­bel­la. ‘He will not as­sist us. In­deed, I firm­ly be­lieve it’s all his own do­ing.’

‘Oh, non­sense! that re­al­ly is non­sense, my love.’

‘Very well, Mr Gre­sham. What I say is al­ways non­sense, I know; you have al­ways told me so. But yet, see how things have turned out. I knew how it would be when she was first brought in­to the house.’ This as­ser­tion was rather a stretch on the part of La­dy Ara­bel­la.

‘Well, it is non­sense to say that Frank is in love with the girl at the doc­tor’s bid­ding.’

‘I think you know, Mr Gre­sham, that I don’t mean that. What I say is this, that Dr Thorne, find­ing what an easy fool Frank is–’

‘I don’t think he’s at all easy, my love; and is cer­tain­ly not a fool.’

‘Very well, have it your own way. I’ll not say a word more. I’m strug­gling to do my best, and I’m brow­beat­en on ev­ery side. God knows I am not in a state of health to bear it!’ And La­dy Ara­bel­la bowed her head in­to her pock­et-​hand­ker­chief.

‘I think, my dear, if you were to see Mary her­self it might do some good,’ said the squire, when the vi­olence of his wife’s grief had some­what sub­sid­ed.

‘What! go and call up­on this girl?’

‘Yes; you can send Beat­rice to give her no­tice, you know. She nev­er was un­rea­son­able, and I do not think that you would find her so. You should tell her, you know–’

‘Oh, I should know very well what to tell her, Mr Gre­sham.’

‘Yes, my love; I’m sure you would; no­body bet­ter. But what I mean is, that if you are to do any good, you should be kind in your man­ner. Mary Thorne has a spir­it that you can­not break. You may per­haps lead, but no­body can drive her.’

As this scheme orig­inat­ed with her hus­band, La­dy Ara­bel­la could not, of course, con­fess that there was much in it. But, nev­er­the­less, she de­ter­mined to at­tempt it, think­ing that if any­thing could be ef­fi­ca­cious for good in their present mis­for­tunes, it would be her own diplo­mat­ic pow­ers. It was, there­fore, at last set­tled be­tween them, that he should en­deav­our to talk over the doc­tor, and that she would do the same with Mary.

‘And then I will speak to Frank,’ said La­dy Ara­bel­la. ‘As yet he has nev­er had the au­dac­ity to open his mouth to me about Mary Thorne, though I be­lieve he de­clares his love open­ly to ev­ery one else in the house.’

‘And I will get Oriel to speak to him,’ said the squire.

‘I think Pa­tience might do more good. I did once think he was get­ting fond of Pa­tience, and I was quite un­hap­py about it then. Ah, dear! I should be al­most pleased at that now.’

And thus it was ar­ranged that all the ar­tillery of Gre­shams­bury was to be brought to bear at once on Frank’s love, so as to crush it, as it were, by the very weight of met­al.

It may be imag­ined that the squire would have less scru­ple in ad­dress­ing the doc­tor on this mat­ter than his wife would feel; and that his part of their present joint un­der­tak­ing was less dif­fi­cult than hers. For he and the doc­tor had ev­er been friends at heart. But, nev­er­the­less, he did feel much scru­ple, as, with his stick in hand, he walked down to the lit­tle gate which opened out near the doc­tor’s house.

This feel­ing was so strong, that he walked on be­yond this door to the en­trance, think­ing of what he was go­ing to do, and then back again. It seemed to be his fate to be de­pend­ing al­ways on the clemen­cy or con­sid­er­ation of Dr Thorne. At this mo­ment the doc­tor was im­pos­ing the on­ly ob­sta­cle which was of­fered to the sale of a great part of his es­tate. Sir Louis, through his lawyer, was loud­ly ac­cus­ing the doc­tor to sell, and the lawyer was loud­ly ac­cus­ing the doc­tor of de­lay­ing to do so. ‘He has the man­age­ment of your prop­er­ty,’ said Mr Finnie; ‘but he man­ages it in the in­ter­est of his own friend. It is quite clear, and we will ex­pose it.’ ‘By all means,’ said Sir Louis. ‘It is a d–d shame, and it shall be ex­posed.’

When he reached the doc­tor’s house, he was shown in­to the draw­ing-​room, and found Mary there alone. It had al­ways been the habit to kiss her fore­head when he chanced to meet her about the house at Gre­shams­bury. She had been younger and more child­ish then; but even now she was but a child to him, so he kissed her as he had been wont to do. She blushed slight­ly as she looked up in­to his face, and said: ‘Oh, Mr Gre­sham, I am so glad to see you again.’

As he looked at her he could not but ac­knowl­edge that it was nat­ural that Frank should love her. He had nev­er be­fore seen that she was at­trac­tive;–had nev­er had an opin­ion about it. She had grown up as a child un­der his eye; and as she had not had the name of be­ing es­pe­cial­ly a pret­ty child, he had nev­er thought on the sub­ject. Now he saw be­fore him a wom­an whose ev­ery fea­ture was full of spir­it and an­ima­tion; whose eye sparkled with more than mere bril­lian­cy; whose face was full of in­tel­li­gence; whose very smile was elo­quent. Was it to be won­dered at that Frank should have learned to love her?

Miss Thorne want­ed but one at­tribute which many con­sid­er es­sen­tial to fem­inine beau­ty. She had no bril­lian­cy of com­plex­ion, no pearly white­ness, no vivid car­na­tion; nor, in­deed, did she pos­sess the dark bril­liance of a brunette. But there was a speak­ing earnest­ness in her face; and ex­pres­sion of men­tal fac­ul­ty which the squire now for the first time per­ceived to be charm­ing.

And then he knew how good she was. He knew well what was her na­ture; how gen­er­ous, how open, how af­fec­tion­ate, and yet how proud! Her pride was her fault; but even that was not a fault in his eyes. Out of his own fam­ily there was no one whom he had loved, and could love, as he loved her. He felt, and ac­knowl­edged, that no man could have a bet­ter wife. And yet he was there with the ex­press ob­ject of res­cu­ing his son from such a mar­riage!

‘You are look­ing very well, Mary,’ he said, al­most in­vol­un­tar­ily. ‘Am I?’ she an­swered, smil­ing. ‘It’s very nice at any rate to be com­pli­ment­ed. Un­cle nev­er pays me any com­pli­ments of that sort.’

In truth, she was look­ing well. She would say to her­self over and over again, from morn­ing to night, that Frank’s love for her would be, must be, un­for­tu­nate; could not lead to hap­pi­ness. But, nev­er­the­less, it did make her hap­py. She had be­fore his re­turn made up her mind to be for­got­ten, and it was so sweet to find that he had been so far from for­get­ting her. A girl may scold a man in words for rash­ness in his love, but her heart nev­er scolds him for such an of­fence as that. She had not been slight­ed, and her heart, there­fore, still rose buoy­ant with­in her breast.

The doc­tor en­tered the room. As the squire’s vis­it had been ex­pect­ed by him, he had of course not been out of the house. ‘And now I sup­pose I must go,’ said Mary; ‘for I know you are go­ing to talk about busi­ness. But, un­cle, Mr Gre­sham says I’m look­ing very well. Why have you not been able to find that out?’

‘She’s a dear, good girl,’ said the squire, as the door shut be­hind her; ‘a dear good girl!’ and the doc­tor could not fail to see that his eyes were filled with tears.

‘I think she is,’ said he, qui­et­ly. And then they both sat silent, as though each was wait­ing to hear whether the oth­er had any­thing more to say on that sub­ject. The doc­tor, at any rate, had noth­ing more to say.

‘I have come here spe­cial­ly to speak to you about her.’

‘About Mary?’

‘Yes, doc­tor; about her and Frank: some­thing must be done, some ar­range­ment made: if not for our sakes, at least for theirs.’

‘What ar­range­ment, squire?’

‘Ah! that’s the ques­tion. I take it for grant­ed that ei­ther Frank or Mary has told you that they have en­gaged them­selves to each oth­er.’

‘Frank told me some twelve months since.’

‘And has not Mary told you?’

‘Not ex­act­ly that. But, nev­er mind; she has, I be­lieve, no se­cret from me. Though I have said but lit­tle to her, I think I know it all.’

‘Well, what then?’

The doc­tor shook his head and put up his hands. He had noth­ing to say; no propo­si­tion to make; no ar­range­ment to sug­gest. The thing was so, and he seemed to say that, as far as he was con­cerned, there was an end of it.

The squire sat look­ing at him, hard­ly know­ing how to pro­ceed. It seemed to him, that the fact of a young man and a young la­dy be­ing in love with each oth­er was not a thing to be left to ar­range it­self, par­tic­ular­ly see­ing the rank in life in which they were placed. But the doc­tor seemed to be of a dif­fer­ent opin­ion.

‘But, Dr Thorne, there is no man on God’s earth who knows my af­fairs as well as you do; and in know­ing mine, you know Frank’s. Do you think it pos­si­ble that they should mar­ry each oth­er?’

‘Pos­si­ble; yes, it is pos­si­ble. You mean, will it be pru­dent?’

‘Well, take it in that way; would it not be most im­pru­dent?’

‘At present, it cer­tain­ly would be. I have nev­er spo­ken to ei­ther of them on the sub­ject; but I pre­sume they do not think of such a thing for the present.’

‘But, doc­tor–’ The squire was cer­tain­ly tak­en aback by the cool­ness of the doc­tor’s man­ner. Af­ter all, he, the squire, was Mr Gre­sham of Gre­shams­bury, gen­er­al­ly ac­knowl­edged to be the first com­mon­er in Barset­shire; af­ter all, Frank was his heir, and, in pro­cess of time, he would be Mr Gre­sham of Gre­shams­bury. Crip­pled as the es­tate was, there would be some­thing left, and the rank at any rate re­mained. But as to Mary, she was not even the doc­tor’s daugh­ter. She was not on­ly pen­ni­less, but name­less, fa­ther­less, worse than moth­er­less! It was in­cred­ible that Dr Thorne, with his gen­er­al­ly ex­alt­ed ideas as to fam­ily, should speak in this cold way as to a pro­ject­ed mar­riage be­tween the heir of Gre­shams­bury and his broth­er’s bas­tard child!

‘But, doc­tor,’ re­peat­ed the squire.

The doc­tor put one leg over the oth­er, and be­gan to rub his calf. ‘Squire,’ said he. ‘I think I know all that you would say, all that you mean. And you don’t like to say it, be­cause you would not wish to pain me by al­lud­ing to Mary’s birth.’

‘But, in­de­pen­dent­ly of that, what would they live on?’ said the squire, en­er­get­ical­ly. ‘Birth is a great thing, a very great thing. You and I think ex­act­ly the alike about that, so we need have no dis­pute. You are quite as proud of Ul­lathorne as I am of Gre­shams­bury.’

‘I might be if it be­longed to me.’

‘But you are. It is no use ar­gu­ing. But, putting that aside al­to­geth­er, what would they live on? If they were to mar­ry, what would they do? Where would they go? You know what La­dy Ara­bel­la thinks of such things; would it be pos­si­ble that they should live up at the house with her? Be­sides, what a life would that be for both of them! Could they live here? Would that be well for them?’

The squire looked at the doc­tor for an an­swer; but he still went rub­bing his calf. Mr Gre­sham, there­fore, was con­strained to con­tin­ue his ex­pos­tu­la­tion.

‘When I am dead there will still, I hope, be some­thing;–some­thing left for the poor fel­low. La­dy Ara­bel­la and the girls would be bet­ter off, per­haps, than now, and I some­times wish, for Frank’s sake, that the time had come.’

The doc­tor could not now go on rub­bing his knees. He was moved to speak, and de­clared that, of all events, that was the one which would be fur­thest from Frank’s heart. ‘I know no son,’ said he, ‘who loves his fa­ther more dear­ly than he does.’

‘I do be­lieve it,’ said the squire; ‘I do be­lieve it. But yet, I can­not but feel that I am in his way.’

‘No, squire, no; you are in no one’s way. You will find your­self hap­py with your son yet, and proud of him. And proud of his wife, too. I hope so, and I think so: I do, in­deed, or I should not say so, squire; we will have many a hap­py day yet to­geth­er, when we shall talk of all these things over the din­ing-​room fire at Gre­shams­bury.’

The squire felt it kind in the doc­tor that he should thus en­deav­our to com­fort him; but he could not un­der­stand, and did not in­quire, on what ba­sis these gold­en hopes was found­ed. It was nec­es­sary, how­ev­er, to re­turn to the sub­ject which he had come to dis­cuss. Would the doc­tor as­sist him in pre­vent­ing this mar­riage? That was now the one thing nec­es­sary to be kept in view.

‘But, doc­tor, about the young peo­ple; of course they can­not mar­ry, you are aware of that.’

‘I don’t know that ex­act­ly.’

‘Well, doc­tor, I must say I thought you would feel it.’

‘Feel what, squire?’

‘That, sit­uat­ed as they are, they ought not to mar­ry.’

‘That is quite an­oth­er ques­tion. I have said noth­ing about that ei­ther to you or to any­body else. The truth is, squire, I have nev­er in­ter­fered in this mat­ter one way or the oth­er; and I have no wish to do so now.’

‘But should you not in­ter­fere? Is not Mary the same to you as your own child?’

Dr Thorne hard­ly knew how to an­swer this. He was aware that his ar­gu­ment about not in­ter­fer­ing was in fact ab­surd. Mary could not mar­ry with­out his in­ter­fer­ence; and had it been the case that she was in dan­ger of mak­ing an im­prop­er mar­riage, of course he would in­ter­fere. His mean­ing was, that he would not at the present mo­ment ex­press any opin­ion; he would not de­clare against a match which might turn out to be in ev­ery way de­sir­able; nor, if he spoke in favour of it, could he give his rea­sons for do­ing so. Un­der these cir­cum­stances, he would have wished to say noth­ing, could that on­ly have been pos­si­ble.

But as it was not pos­si­ble, and as he must say some­thing, he an­swered the squire’s last ques­tion by ask­ing an­oth­er. ‘What is your ob­jec­tion, squire?’

‘Ob­jec­tion! Why, what on earth would they live on?’

‘Then I un­der­stand, that if that dif­fi­cul­ty were over, you would not refuse your con­sent mere­ly be­cause of Mary’s birth?’

This was a man­ner in which the squire had by no means ex­pect­ed to have the af­fair pre­sent­ed to him. It seemed so im­pos­si­ble that any sound-​mind­ed man should take any but his view of the case, that he had not pre­pared him­self for ar­gu­ment. There was ev­ery ob­jec­tion to his son mar­ry­ing Miss Thorne; but the fact of their hav­ing no in­come be­tween them did cer­tain­ly jus­ti­fy him in al­leg­ing that first.

‘But that dif­fi­cul­ty can’t be got over, doc­tor. You know, how­ev­er, that it would be cause of grief to us all to see Frank mar­ry much be­neath his sta­tion; that is, I mean, in fam­ily. You should not press me to say this, for you know that I love Mary dear­ly.’

‘But, my dear friend, it is nec­es­sary. Wounds some­times must be opened in or­der that they may be healed. What I mean is this;–and, squire, I’m sure I need not say to you that I hope for an hon­est an­swer,–were Mary Thorne an heiress; had she, for in­stance, such wealth as that Miss Dun­sta­ble that we hear of; in that case would you ob­ject to this match?’

When the doc­tor de­clared that he ex­pect­ed an hon­est an­swer the squire lis­tened with all his ears; but the ques­tion, when fin­ished, seemed to have no bear­ing on the present case.

‘Come, squire, speak your mind faith­ful­ly. There was some talk of Frank’s mar­ry­ing Miss Dun­sta­ble; did you mean to ob­ject to that match?’

‘Miss Dun­sta­ble was le­git­imate; at least, I pre­sume so.’

‘Oh, Mr Gre­sham! has it come to that? Miss Dun­sta­ble, then, would have sat­is­fied your ideas of high birth?’

Mr Gre­sham was rather posed, and re­gret­ted, at the mo­ment, his al­lu­sion to Miss Dun­sta­ble’s pre­sumed le­git­ima­cy. But he soon re­cov­ered him­self. ‘No,’ said he, ‘it would not. And I am will­ing to ad­mit, as I have ad­mit­ted be­fore, that the un­doubt­ed ad­van­tages aris­ing from wealth are tak­en by the world as aton­ing for what oth­er­wise would be a mesal­liance. But–’

‘You ad­mit that, do you? You ac­knowl­edge that as your con­vic­tion on the sub­ject?’

‘Yes. But–’ The squire was go­ing on to ex­plain the pro­pri­ety of this opin­ion, but the doc­tor un­civil­ly would not hear him.

‘Then squire, I will not in­ter­fere in this mat­ter one way or the oth­er.’

‘How on earth can such an opin­ion–’

‘Pray ex­cuse me, Mr Gre­sham; but my mind is now quite made up. It was very near­ly so be­fore. I will do noth­ing to en­cour­age Frank, nor will I say any­thing to dis­cour­age Mary.’

‘That is the most sin­gu­lar res­olu­tion that a man of sense like you ev­er came to.’

‘I can’t help it, squire; it is my res­olu­tion.’

‘But what has Miss Dun­sta­ble’s for­tune to do with it?’

‘I can­not say that it has any­thing; but, in this mat­ter, I will not in­ter­fere.’

The squire went on for some time, but it was all to no pur­pose; and at last he left the house, con­sid­er­ably in dud­geon. The on­ly con­clu­sion to which he could come was, that Dr Thorne had thought the chance on his niece’s be­half too good to be thrown away, and had, there­fore, re­solved to act in a very sin­gu­lar way.

‘I would not have be­lieved it of him, though all Barset­shire had told me,’ he said to him­self as he en­tered the great gates; and he went on re­peat­ing the same words till he found him­self in his own room. ‘No, not if all Barset­shire had told me!’

He did not, how­ev­er, com­mu­ni­cate the ill re­sult of his vis­it to the La­dy Ara­bel­la.