Dr Thorne

CHAPTER XLIV

SAT­UR­DAY EVENING AND SUN­DAY MORN­ING

We must now go back a lit­tle and de­scribe how Frank had been sent off on spe­cial busi­ness to Lon­don. The house­hold at Gre­shams­bury was at this time in but a dole­ful state. It seemed to be per­vad­ed, from the squire down to the scullery-​maid, with a feel­ing that things were not go­ing well; and men and wom­en, in spite of Beat­rice’s com­ing mar­riage, were grim-​vis­aged, and do­lor­ous. Mr Mor­timer Gaze­bee, re­ject­ed though he had been, still, went and came, talk­ing much to the squire, much al­so to her la­dy­ship, as to the ill-​do­ings which were in the course of pro­jec­tion by Sir Louis; and Frank went about the house with cloud­ed brow, as though fi­nal­ly re­solved to ne­glect his one great du­ty.

Poor Beat­rice was robbed of half her joy; over and over again her broth­er asked her whether she had yet seen Mary, and she was obliged as of­ten to an­swer that she had not. In­deed, she did not dare to vis­it her friend, for it was hard­ly pos­si­ble that they should sym­pa­thize with each oth­er. Mary was, to say the least, stub­born in her pride; and Beat­rice, though she could for­give her friend for lov­ing her broth­er, could not for­give the ob­sti­na­cy with which Mary per­sist­ed in a course which, as Beat­rice thought, she her­self knew to be wrong.

And then Mr Gaze­bee came down from town, with an in­ti­ma­tion that it be­hoved the squire him­self to go up that he might see cer­tain learned pun­dits, and be bad­gered in his own per­son at var­ious dingy, dis­mal cham­bers in Lin­coln’s Inn Fields, the Tem­ple, and Gray’s Inn Lane. It was an in­vi­ta­tion ex­act­ly of that sort which a good many years ago was giv­en to a cer­tain duck.

‘Will you, will you–will you, will you–come and be killed?’ Al­though Mr Gaze­bee urged the mat­ter with such elo­quence, the squire re­mained steady to his ob­jec­tion, and swam ob­sti­nate­ly about his Gre­shams­bury pond in any di­rec­tion save that which seemed to lead to­wards Lon­don.

This oc­curred on the very evening of that Fri­day which had wit­nessed the La­dy Ara­bel­la’s last vis­it to Dr Thorne’s house. The ques­tion of the squire’s nec­es­sary jour­ney to the great foun­tains of jus­tice was, of course, dis­cussed be­tween La­dy Ara­bel­la and Mr Gaze­bee; and it oc­curred to the for­mer, full as she was of Frank’s in­iq­ui­ty and of Mary’s ob­sti­na­cy, that if Frank were sent up in lieu of his fa­ther, it would sep­arate them at least for a while. If she could on­ly get Frank away with­out see­ing his love, she might yet so work up­on him, by means of the mes­sage which Mary had sent, as to post­pone, if not break off, this hate­ful match. It was in­con­ceiv­able that a youth of twen­ty-​three, and such a youth as Frank, should be ob­sti­nate­ly con­stant to a girl pos­sessed of no great beau­ty–so ar­gued La­dy Ara­bel­la to her­self–and who had nei­ther wealth, birth, nor fash­ion to rec­om­mend her.

And this it was at last set­tled–the squire be­ing a will­ing part­ner to the agree­ment–that Frank should go up and be bad­gered in lieu of his fa­ther. At his age it was pos­si­ble to make a thing de­sir­able, if not nec­es­sary–on ac­count of the im­por­tance con­veyed–to sit day af­ter day in the cham­bers of Messrs Slow & Bideawhile, and hear musty law talk, and fin­ger dusty law parch­ments. The squire had made many vis­its to Messrs Slow & Bideawhile, and he knew bet­ter. Frank had not hith­er­to been there on his own bot­tom, and thus he fell eas­ily in­to the trap.

Mr Oriel was al­so go­ing to Lon­don, and this was an­oth­er rea­son for send­ing Frank. Mr Oriel had busi­ness of great im­por­tance, which it was quite nec­es­sary that he should ex­ecute be­fore his mar­riage. How much of this busi­ness con­sist­ed in go­ing to his tai­lor, buy­ing a wed­ding-​ring, and pur­chas­ing some oth­er more cost­ly present for Beat­rice, we need not here in­quire. But Mr Oriel was quite on La­dy Ara­bel­la’s side with ref­er­ence to this mad en­gage­ment, and as Frank and he were now fast friends, some good might be done in that way. ‘If we all cau­tion him against it, he can hard­ly with­stand us all!’ said La­dy Ara­bel­la to her­self.

The mat­ter was broached to Frank on the Sat­ur­day evening, and set­tled be­tween them all on the same night. Noth­ing, of course, was at that mo­ment said about Mary; but La­dy Ara­bel­la was too full of the sub­ject to let him go to Lon­don with­out telling him that Mary was ready to re­cede if on­ly he would al­low her to do so. About eleven o’clock, Frank was sit­ting in his own room, com­ing over the dif­fi­cul­ties of the sit­ua­tion–think­ing of his fa­ther’s trou­bles, his own po­si­tion–when he was roused from his rever­ie by a slight tap at the door.

‘Come in,’ he said some­what loud­ly. He thought it was one of his sis­ters, who were apt to vis­it him at all hours and for all man­ner of rea­sons; and he, though he was usu­al­ly gen­tle to them, was not at present ex­act­ly in a hu­mour to be dis­turbed.

The door gen­tly opened, and he saw his moth­er stand­ing hes­itat­ing in the pas­sage.

‘Can I come in, Frank?’ said she.

‘Oh, yes, moth­er; by all means:’ and then, with some sur­prise marked in his coun­te­nance, he pre­pared a seat for her. Such a vis­it as this from La­dy Ara­bel­la was very un­usu­al; so much so, that he had prob­ably not seen her in his own room since the day when he first left school. He had noth­ing, how­ev­er, to be ashamed of; noth­ing to con­ceal un­less it were an open let­ter from Miss Dun­sta­ble which he had in his hand when she en­tered, and which he some­what hur­ried­ly thrust in­to his pock­et.

‘I want­ed to say a few words to you, Frank, be­fore you start for Lon­don about this busi­ness.’ Frank sig­ni­fied by a ges­ture, that he was quite ready to lis­ten to her.

‘I am so glad to see your fa­ther putting the mat­ter in­to your hands. You are younger than he is; and then–I don’t know why, but some­how your fa­ther has nev­er been a good man of busi­ness–ev­ery­thing has gone wrong with him.’

‘Oh, moth­er! do not say any­thing against him.’

‘No, Frank, I will not; I do not wish it. Things have been un­for­tu­nate, cer­tain­ly. Ah me! I lit­tle thought when I mar­ried–but I don’t mean to com­plain–I have ex­cel­lent chil­dren, and I ought to be thank­ful for that.’

Frank be­gan to fear that no good would be com­ing when his moth­er spoke in that strain. ‘I will do the best I can,’ said he, ‘up in town. I can’t help think­ing my­self that Mr Gaze­bee might have done as well, but–’

‘Oh, dear no; by no means. In such cas­es the prin­ci­pal must show him­self. Be­sides, it is right you should know how mat­ters stand. Who is so much in­ter­est­ed in it as you are? Poor Frank! I do so of­ten feel for you when I think how the prop­er­ty has dwin­dled.’

‘Pray do not mind me, moth­er. Why should you talk of it as my mat­ter while my fa­ther is not yet forty-​five? His life, so to speak, is as good as mine. I can do very well with­out it; all I want is to be al­lowed to set­tle to some­thing.’

‘You mean a pro­fes­sion.’

‘Yes; some­thing of that sort.’

‘They are all so slow, dear Frank. You, who speak French so well–I should think my broth­er might get you in as an at­tache to some em­bassy.’

‘That wouldn’t suit me at all,’ said Frank.

‘Well, we’ll talk about that some oth­er time. But I came about some­thing else, and I do hope you will hear me.’

Frank’s brow again grew black, for he knew that his moth­er was about to say some­thing which it would be dis­agree­able for him to hear.

‘I was with Mary, yes­ter­day.’

‘Well, moth­er?’

‘Don’t be an­gry with me, Frank; you can’t but know that the fate of an on­ly son must be a sub­ject of anx­iety to a moth­er.’ Ah! how sin­gu­lar­ly al­tered was La­dy Ara­bel­la’s tone since first she had tak­en up­on her­self to dis­cuss the mar­riage prospects of her son! Then how au­to­crat­ic had she been as she went him away, bid­ding him, with full com­mand, to throw him­self in­to the gold­en em­braces of Miss Dun­sta­ble! But now, how hum­ble, as she came sup­pli­ant­ly to his room, crav­ing that she might have leave to whis­per in­to his ear a moth­er’s anx­ious fears! Frank had laughed at her stern be­hests, though he had half obeyed them; but he was touched to the heart by her hu­mil­ity.

He drew his chair near­er to her, and took her by the hand. But she, dis­en­gag­ing hers, part­ed the hair from off his fore­head, and kissed his brow. ‘Oh, Frank,’ she said, ‘I have been so proud of you, am still so proud of you. It will send me to my grave if I see you sink be­low your prop­er po­si­tion. Not that it will be your fault. I am sure it will not be your fault. On­ly cir­cum­stanced as you are, you should be dou­bly, tre­bly, care­ful. If your fa­ther had not–’

‘Do not speak against my fa­ther.’

‘No, Frank; I will not–no, I will not; not an­oth­er word. And now, Frank–’

Be­fore we go on we must say one word fur­ther as to La­dy Ara­bel­la’s char­ac­ter. It will prob­ably be said that she was a con­sum­mate hyp­ocrite; but at the present mo­ment she was not hyp­ocrit­ical. She did love her son; was anx­ious–very, very anx­ious for him; was proud of him, and al­most ad­mired the ob­sti­na­cy which so vexed her in­most soul. No grief would be to her so great as that of see­ing him sink be­low what she con­ceived to be his po­si­tion. She was as gen­uine­ly moth­er­ly, in wish­ing that he should mar­ry mon­ey, as an­oth­er wom­an might be in wish­ing to see her son a bish­op; or as the Spar­tan ma­tron, who pre­ferred that her off­spring should re­turn on his shield, to hear­ing that he had come back whole in limb but taint­ed in hon­our. When Frank spoke of a pro­fes­sion, she in­stant­ly thought of what Lord de Cour­cy might do for him. If he would not mar­ry mon­ey, he might, at any rate, be at­tache at an em­bassy. A pro­fes­sion–hard work, as a doc­tor, or as an en­gi­neer–would, ac­cord­ing to her ideas, de­grade him; cause him to sink be­low his prop­er po­si­tion; but to dan­gle at a for­eign court, to make small talk at evening par­ties of a la­dy am­bas­sadress, and oc­ca­sion­al­ly, per­haps, to write de­mi-​of­fi­cial notes con­tain­ing de­mi-​of­fi­cial tit­tle-​tat­tle; this would be in prop­er ac­cor­dance with the high hon­our of a Gre­sham of Gre­shams­bury.

We may not ad­mire the di­rec­tion tak­en by La­dy Ara­bel­la’s en­er­gy on be­half of her son, but that en­er­gy was not hyp­ocrit­ical.

‘And now, Frank–’ She looked wist­ful­ly in­to his face as she ad­dressed him, as though half afraid to go on, and beg­ging that he would re­ceive with com­plai­sance what­ev­er she found her­self forced to say.

‘Well, moth­er?’

‘I was with Mary yes­ter­day.’

‘Yes, yes; what then? I know what your feel­ings are with re­gard to her.’

‘No, Frank; you wrong me. I have no feel­ings against her–none, in­deed; none but this: that she is not fit to be your wife.’

‘I think her fit.’

‘Ah, yes; but how fit? Think of your po­si­tion, Frank, and what means you have of keep­ing her. Think of what you are. Your fa­ther’s on­ly son; the heir to Gre­shams­bury. If Gre­shams­bury be ev­er again more than a name, it is you that must re­deem it. Of all men liv­ing you are the least able to mar­ry a girl like Mary Thorne.’

‘Moth­er, I will not sell my­self for what you call my po­si­tion.’

‘Who asks you? I do not ask you; no­body asks you. I do not want you to mar­ry any one. I did think once–but let that pass. You are now twen­ty-​three. In ten years’ time you will still be a young man. I on­ly ask you to wait. If you mar­ry now, that is, mar­ry such a girl as Mary Thorne–’

‘Such a girl! Where shall I find an­oth­er?’

‘I mean as re­gards mon­ey, Frank; you know I mean that; how are you to live? Where are you to go? And then, her birth. Oh, Frank, Frank!’

‘Birth! I hate such pre­tence. What was–but I won’t talk about it. Moth­er, I tell you my word is pledged, and on no ac­count will I be in­duced to break it.’

‘Ah, that’s just it; that’s just the point. Now, Frank, lis­ten to me. Pray lis­ten to me pa­tient­ly for one minute.’

Frank promised that he would lis­ten pa­tient­ly; but he looked any­thing but pa­tient as he said so.

‘I have seen Mary, as it was cer­tain­ly my du­ty to do. You can­not be an­gry with me for that.’

‘Who said that I was an­gry, moth­er?’

‘Well, I have seen her, and I must own, that though she was not dis­posed to be cour­te­ous to me, per­son­al­ly, she said much that marked her ex­cel­lent good sense. But the gist of it was this; that as she had made you a promise, noth­ing should turn her from that promise but your per­mis­sion.’

‘And do you think–’

‘Wait a mo­ment, Frank, and lis­ten to me. She con­fessed that this mar­riage was one which would nec­es­sar­ily bring dis­tress on all your fam­ily; that it was one which would prob­ably be ru­inous to your­self; that it was a match which could not be ap­proved of: she did, in­deed; she con­fessed all that. “I have noth­ing”, she said–those were her own words–“I have noth­ing to say in favour of this en­gage­ment, ex­cept that he wish­es it.” That is what she thinks of it her­self. “His wish­es are not a rea­son; but a law,” she said–’

‘And, moth­er, would you have me desert such a girl as that?’

‘It is not de­sert­ing, Frank: it would not be de­sert­ing: you would be do­ing that which she her­self ap­proves of. She feels the im­pro­pri­ety of go­ing on; but she can­not draw back be­cause of her promise to you. She thinks that she can­not do it, even though she wish­es it.’

‘Wish­es it! Oh, moth­er!’

‘I do be­lieve she does, be­cause she has sense to feel the truth of all that your friends say. Oh, Frank, I will go on my knees to you if you will lis­ten to me.’

‘Oh, moth­er! moth­er! moth­er!’

‘You should think twice, Frank, be­fore you refuse the on­ly re­quest your moth­er ev­er made you. And why do I ask you? why do I come to you thus? Is it for my own sake? Oh, my boy! my dar­ling boy! will you lose ev­ery­thing in life, be­cause you love the child with whom you played with as a child?’

‘Whose fault is it that we were to­geth­er as chil­dren? She is now more than a child. I look on her al­ready as my wife.’

‘But she is not your wife, Frank; and she knows that she ought not to be. It is on­ly be­cause you hold her to it that she con­sents to it.’

‘Do you mean to say that she does not love me?’

La­dy Ara­bel­la would prob­ably have said this, al­so, had she dared; but she felt that in do­ing so, she would be go­ing too far. It was use­less for her to say any­thing that would be ut­ter­ly con­tra­dict­ed by an ap­peal to Mary her­self.

‘No, Frank; I do not mean to say that you do not love her. What I do mean is this: that it is not be­com­ing in you to give up ev­ery­thing–not on­ly your­self, but all your fam­ily–for such a love as this; and that she, Mary her­self ac­knowl­edges this. Ev­ery one is of the same opin­ion. Ask your fa­ther: I need not say that he would agree with you about ev­ery­thing he could. I will not say the De Cour­cys.’

‘Oh, the De Cour­cys!’

‘Yes, they are my re­la­tions, I know that.’ La­dy Ara­bel­la could not quite drop the tone of bit­ter­ness which was nat­ural to her in say­ing this. ‘But ask your sis­ters; ask Mr Oriel, whom you es­teem so much; ask your friend Har­ry Bak­er.’

Frank sat silent for a mo­ment or two while his moth­er, with a look al­most of agony, gazed in­to his face. ‘I will ask no one,’ at last he said.

‘Oh, my boy! my boy!’

‘No one but my­self can know my heart.’

‘And you will sac­ri­fice all to such a love as that, all; her, al­so, whom you say that you so love? What hap­pi­ness can you give her as your wife? Oh, Frank! is that the on­ly an­swer you will make to your moth­er on her knees?

‘Oh, moth­er! moth­er!’

‘No, Frank, I will not let you ru­in your­self; I will not let you de­stroy your­self. Promise this, at least, that you will think of what I have said.’

‘Think of it! I do think of it.’

‘Ah, but think of it in earnest. You will be ab­sent now in Lon­don; you will have the busi­ness of the es­tate to man­age; you will have heavy cares up­on your hands. Think of it as a man, and not as a boy.’

‘I will see her to-​mor­row be­fore I go.’

‘No, Frank, no; grant me that tri­fle, at any rate. Think up­on this with­out see­ing her. Do not pro­claim your­self so weak that you can­not trust your­self to think over what your moth­er says to you with­out ask­ing her leave. Though you be in love, do not be child­ish with it. What I have told you as com­ing from her is true, word for word; if it were not, you would soon learn so. Think now of what I have said, and of what she says, and when you come back from Lon­don, then you can de­cide.’

To so much Frank con­sent­ed af­ter some fur­ther par­ley; name­ly, that he would pro­ceed to Lon­don on the fol­low­ing Mon­day morn­ing with­out again see­ing Mary. And in the mean­time, she was wait­ing with sore heart for his an­swer to that let­ter that was ly­ing, and was still to lie for so many hours, in the safe pro­tec­tion of Sil­ver­bridge post­mistress.

It may seem strange; but, in truth, his moth­er’s elo­quence had more ef­fect on Frank than that of his fa­ther: and yet, with his fa­ther he had al­ways sym­pa­thized. But his moth­er had been en­er­get­ic; where­as, his fa­ther, if not luke­warm, had, at any rate, been timid. ‘I will ask no one,’ Frank had said in the strong de­ter­mi­na­tion of his heart; and yet the words were hard­ly out of his mouth be­fore he bethought him­self that he would talk the thing over with Har­ry Bak­er. ‘Not,’ said he to him­self, ‘that I have any doubt: I have no doubt; but I hate to have all the world against me. My moth­er wish­es me to ask Har­ry Bak­er. Har­ry is a good fel­low, and I will ask him.’ And with this re­solve he be­took him­self to bed.

The fol­low­ing day was Sun­day. Af­ter break­fast Frank went with the fam­ily to church, as was usu­al; and there, as usu­al, he saw Mary in Dr Thorne’s pew. She, as she looked at him, could not but won­der why he had not an­swered the let­ter which was still at Sil­ver­bridge; and he en­deav­oured to read in­to her face whether it was true, as his moth­er told him, that she was quite ready to give him up. The prayers of both of them were dis­turbed, as is so of­ten the case with the prayers of oth­er anx­ious peo­ple.

There was a sep­arate door open­ing from the Gre­shams­bury pew out in­to the Gre­shams­bury grounds, so that the fam­ily were not forced in­to un­seem­ly com­mu­ni­ty with the vil­lage mul­ti­tude in go­ing to and from their prayers; for the front door of the church led out in­to a road which had no con­nex­ion with the pri­vate path. It was not un­usu­al with Frank and his fa­ther to go round, af­ter the ser­vice, to the chief en­trance, so that they might speak to their neigh­bours, and get rid of some of the ex­clu­sive­ness which was in­tend­ed for them. On this morn­ing the squire did so; but Frank walked home with his moth­er and sis­ters, so that Mary saw no more of him.

I have said that he walked home with his moth­er and sis­ters; but he rather fol­lowed in their path. He was not in­clined to talk much, at least, not to them; and he con­tin­ued ask­ing him­self the ques­tion–whether it could be pos­si­ble that he was wrong in re­main­ing true to his promise? Could it be that he owed more to his fa­ther and his moth­er, and what they chose to call his po­si­tion, than he did to Mary?

Af­ter church, Mr Gaze­bee tried to get hold of him, for there was still much to be said, and many hints to be giv­en, as to how Frank should speak, and, more es­pe­cial­ly, as to how to hold his tongue among the learned pun­dits in and about Chancery Lane. ‘You must be very wide awake with Messrs Slow and Bideawhile,’ said Mr Gaze­bee. But Frank would not hear­ken to him just at that mo­ment. He was go­ing to ride over to Har­ry Bak­er, so he put Mr Gaze­bee off till the half-​hour be­fore din­ner,–or else the half-​hour af­ter tea.

On the pre­vi­ous day he had re­ceived a let­ter from Miss Dun­sta­ble, which he had hith­er­to read but once. His moth­er had in­ter­rupt­ed him as he was about to re­fer to it; and now, as his fa­ther’s nag was be­ing sad­dled–he was still pru­dent in sav­ing the black horse–he again took it out.

Miss Dun­sta­ble had writ­ten in ex­cel­lent hu­mour. She was in great dis­tress about the oil of Lebanon, she said. ‘I have been try­ing to get a pur­chas­er for the last two years; but my lawyer won’t let me sell it, be­cause the would-​be pur­chasers of­fer a thou­sand pounds or so less than the val­ue. I would give ten to get rid of the bore; but I am as lit­tle able to act my­self as San­cho was in his gov­ern­ment. The oil of Lebanon! Did you hear any­thing of it when you were in those parts? I thought of chang­ing the name to “Lon­don par­tic­ular”; but my lawyers says the brew­ers would bring an ac­tion against me.’

‘I was go­ing down to your neigh­bour­hood–to your friend the duke’s, at least. But I am pre­vent­ed by my poor doc­tor, who is so weak that I must take him to Malvern. It is a great bore; but I have the sat­is­fac­tion that I do my du­ty by him!

‘Your cousin George is to be mar­ried at last. So I hear, at least. He loves wise­ly, if not well; for his wid­ow has the name of be­ing pru­dent and fair­ly well to do in the world. She has got over the caprices of her youth. Dear Aunt De Cour­cy will be so de­light­ed. I might per­haps have met her at Gatherum Cas­tle. I do so re­gret it.

‘Mr Mof­fat has turned up again. We all thought you had fi­nal­ly ex­tin­guished him. He left a card the oth­er day, and I have told the ser­vant al­ways to say that I am at home, and that you are with me. He is go­ing to stand for some bor­ough in the west of Ire­land. He’s used to shil­le­laghs by this time.

‘By the by, I have a cadeau for a friend of yours. I won’t tell you what it is, nor per­mit you to com­mu­ni­cate the fact. But when you tell me that in send­ing it I may fair­ly con­grat­ulate her on hav­ing so de­vot­ed a slave as you, it shall be sent.

‘If you have noth­ing bet­ter to do at present, do come and see my in­valid at Malvern. Per­haps you might have a mind to treat for the oil of Lebanon. I’ll give you all the as­sis­tance I can in cheat­ing my lawyers.’

There was not much about Mary in this; but still, the lit­tle that was said made him again de­clare that nei­ther fa­ther nor moth­er should move him from his res­olu­tion. ‘I will write to her and say that she may send her present when she pleas­es. Or I will run down to Malvern for a day. It will do me good to see her.’ And so he re­solved, he rode away to Mill Hill, think­ing, as he went, how he would put the mat­ter to Har­ry Bak­er.

Har­ry was at home; but we need not de­scribe the whole in­ter­view. Had Frank been asked be­fore­hand, he would have de­clared, that on no pos­si­ble sub­ject could he have had the slight­est hes­ita­tion in ask­ing Har­ry any ques­tion, or com­mu­ni­cat­ing to him any tid­ings. But when the time came, he found that he did hes­itate much. He did not want to ask his friend if he should be wise to mar­ry Mary Thorne. Wise or not, he was de­ter­mined to do that. But he wished to be quite sure that his moth­er was wrong in say­ing that all the world would dis­suade him from it. Miss Dun­sta­ble, at any rate, did not do so.

At last, seat­ed on a stile at the back of the Mill Hill sta­bles, while Har­ry stood close be­fore him with both his hands in his pock­ets, he did get his sto­ry told. It was by no means the first time that Har­ry Bak­er had heard about Mary Thorne, and he was not, there­fore, so sur­prised as he might have been, had the af­fair been new to him. And thus, stand­ing there in the po­si­tion we have de­scribed, did Mr Bak­er, ju­nior, give ut­ter­ance to such wis­dom as was in him on this sub­ject.

‘You see, Frank, there are two sides to ev­ery ques­tion; and, as I take it, fel­lows are so apt to go wrong be­cause they are so fond of one side, they won’t look at the oth­er. There’s no doubt about it, La­dy Ara­bel­la is a very clever wom­an, and knows what’s what; and there’s no doubt about this ei­ther, that you have a very tick­lish hand of cards to play.’

‘I’ll play it straight­for­ward; and that’s my game’ said Frank.

‘Well and good, my dear fel­low. That’s the best game al­ways. But what is straight­for­ward? Be­tween you and me, I fear there’s no doubt that your fa­ther’s prop­er­ty has got in­to a deuce of a mess.’

‘I don’t see that that has any­thing to do with it.’

‘Yes, but it has. If the es­tate was all right, and your fa­ther could give you a thou­sand a year to live on with­out feel­ing it, and if your el­dest child would be cock-​sure of Gre­shams­bury, it might be very well that you should please your­self as to mar­ry­ing at once. But that’s not the case; and yet Gre­shams­bury is too good a card to be flung away.’

‘I could fling it away to-​mor­row,’ said Frank.

‘Ah! you think so,’ said Har­ry the Wise. ‘But if you were to hear to-​mor­row that Sir Louis Scatcherd were mas­ter of the whole place, and be d–d to him, you would feel very un­com­fort­able.’ Had Har­ry known how near Sir Louis was to his last strug­gle, he would not have spo­ken of him in this man­ner. ‘That’s all very fine talk, but it won’t bear wear and tear. You do care for Gre­shams­bury if you are the fel­low I take you to be: care for it very much; and you care too much for your fa­ther be­ing Gre­sham of Gre­shams­bury.’

‘This won’t af­fect my fa­ther at all.’

‘Ah, but it will af­fect him very much. If you were to mar­ry Miss Thorne to-​mor­row, there would at once be an end to any hope to save your prop­er­ty.’

‘And do you mean to say I’m to be a liar to her for such rea­sons as that? Why, Har­ry, I should be as bad as Mof­fat. On­ly it would be ten times more cow­ard­ly, as she has no broth­er.’

‘I must dif­fer from you there al­to­geth­er; but mind, I don’t mean to say any­thing. Tell me that you have made up your mind to mar­ry her, and I’ll stick to you through thick and thin. But if you ask my ad­vice, why, I must give it. It is quite a dif­fer­ent af­fair to that of Mof­fat’s. He had lots of tin, ev­ery­thing he could want, and there could be no rea­son why he should not mar­ry,–ex­cept that he was a snob, of whom your sis­ter was well quit. But this is very dif­fer­ent. If I, as your friend, were to put it to Miss Thorne, what do you think she would say her­self?’

‘She would say what­ev­er was best for me.’

‘Ex­act­ly: be­cause she is a trump. And I say the same. There can be no doubt about it, Frank, my boy: such a mar­riage would be very fool­ish for you both; very fool­ish. No­body can ad­mire Miss Thorne more than I do; but you oughtn’t to be a mar­ry­ing man for the next ten years, un­less you get a for­tune. If you tell her the truth, and if she’s the girl I take her to be, she’ll not ac­cuse you of be­ing false. She’ll peak for a while; and so will you, old chap. But oth­ers have had to do that be­fore you. They have got over it and so will you.’

Such was the spo­ken wis­dom of Har­ry Bak­er, and who can say that he was wrong? Frank sat a while on his rus­tle seat, par­ing his nails with his penknife, and then look­ing up, he thus thanked his friend:-

‘I’m sure you mean well, Har­ry; and I’m much obliged to you. I dare say you’re right too. But, some­how, it doesn’t come home to me. And what is more, af­ter what has passed, I could not tell her that I wish to part from her. I could not do it. And be­sides, I have that sort of feel­ing, that if I heard she was to mar­ry any one else, I am sure I would blow his brains out. Ei­ther his or my own.’

‘Well, Frank, you may count on me for any­thing, ex­cept the last propo­si­tion:’ and so they shook hands, and Frank rode back to Gre­shams­bury.