Dr Thorne

CHAPTER XLVII

HOW THE BRIDE WAS RE­CEIVED, AND WHO WERE ASKED TO THE WED­DING

And thus af­ter all did Frank per­form his du­ty; he did mar­ry mon­ey; or rather, as the wed­ding has not yet tak­en place, and is, in­deed, as yet hard­ly talked of, we should more prop­er­ly say that he had en­gaged him­self to mar­ry mon­ey. And then, such a quan­ti­ty of mon­ey! the Scatcherd wealth great­ly ex­ceed­ed the Dun­sta­ble wealth; so that our hero may be looked on as hav­ing per­formed his du­ties in a man­ner de­serv­ing the very high­est com­men­da­tion from all class­es of the De Cour­cy con­nex­ion.

And he re­ceived it. But that was noth­ing. That he should be fet­ed by the De Cour­cys and the Gre­shams, now that he was about to do his du­ty by his fam­ily in so ex­em­plary a man­ner: that he should be pat­ted on the back, now that he no longer med­itat­ed that vile crime which had been so ab­hor­rent to his moth­er’s soul; this was on­ly nat­ural; this is hard­ly wor­thy of re­mark. But there was an­oth­er to be fet­ed, an­oth­er per­son to be made a per­son­age, an­oth­er blessed hu­man mor­tal about to do her du­ty by the fam­ily of Gre­sham in a man­ner that de­served, and should re­ceive, La­dy Ara­bel­la’s warmest ca­ress­es.

Dear Mary! It was, in­deed, not sin­gu­lar that she should be pre­pared to act so well, see­ing that in ear­ly youth she had had the ad­van­tage of an ed­uca­tion in the Gre­shams­bury nurs­ery; but not on that ac­count was it the less fit­ting that her virtue should be ac­knowl­edged, eu­lo­gized, nay, all but wor­shipped.

How the par­ty at the doc­tor’s got it­self bro­ken up, I am not pre­pared to say. Frank, I know, stayed, and dined there, and his poor moth­er, who would not re­tire to rest till she had kissed him, and blessed him, and thanked him for all he was do­ing for the fam­ily, was kept wait­ing in her dress­ing-​room till a very un­rea­son­able hour of the night.

It was the squire who brought the news up to the house. ‘Ara­bel­la,’ he said, in a low, but some­what solemn voice, ‘you will be sur­prised at the news I bring you. Mary Thorne is the heiress to all the Scatcherd prop­er­ty!’

‘Oh, heav­ens! Mr Gre­sham.’

‘Yes, in­deed,’ con­tin­ued the squire. ‘So it is; it is very, very–’ But La­dy Ara­bel­la had faint­ed. She was a wom­an who gen­er­al­ly had her feel­ings and her emo­tions much un­der her own con­trol; but what she now heard was too much for her. When she came to her sens­es, the first words that es­caped her lips were, ‘Dear Mary!’

But the house­hold had to sleep on the news be­fore it could be ful­ly re­al­ized. The squire was not by na­ture a mer­ce­nary man. If I have at all suc­ceed­ed in putting his char­ac­ter be­fore the read­er, he will be rec­og­nized as one not over at­tached to mon­ey for mon­ey’s sake. But things had gone so hard with him, the world had be­come so rough, so un­gra­cious, so full of thorns, the want of means had be­come an evil so keen­ly felt in ev­ery hour, that it can­not be won­dered at that his dreams that night should be of a gold­en Ely­si­um. The wealth was not com­ing to him. True. But his chief sor­row had been for his son. Now that son would be his on­ly cred­itor. It was as though moun­tains of mar­ble had been tak­en off his bo­som.

But La­dy Ara­bel­la’s dreams flew away at once in­to the sev­enth heav­en. Sor­did as they cer­tain­ly were, they were not ab­so­lute­ly self­ish. Frank would now cer­tain­ly be the first com­mon­er in Barset­shire; of course he would rep­re­sent the coun­ty; of course there would be the house in town; it wouldn’t be her house, but she was con­tent­ed that the grandeur should be that of her child. He would have heav­en knows what to spend per an­num. And that it should come through Mary Thorne! What a bless­ing she had al­lowed Mary to be brought in­to the Gre­shams­bury nurs­ery! Dear Mary!

‘She will of course be one now,’ said Beat­rice to her sis­ter. With her, at the present mo­ment, ‘one’ of course meant one of the bevy that was to at­tend her at the al­tar. ‘Oh dear! how nice! I shan’t know what to say to her to-​mor­row. But I know one thing.’

‘What is that?’ asked Au­gus­ta.

‘She will be as mild and meek as a lit­tle dove. If she and the doc­tor had lost ev­ery shilling in the world, she would have been proud as an ea­gle.’ It must be ac­knowl­edged that Beat­rice had had the wit to read Mary’s char­ac­ter right.

But Au­gus­ta was not quite pleased with the whole af­fair. Not that she be­grudged her broth­er his luck, or Mary her hap­pi­ness. But her ideas of right and wrong–per­haps we should rather say La­dy Amelia’s ideas–would not be fair­ly car­ried out.

‘Af­ter all, Beat­rice, this does not al­ter her birth. I know it is use­less say­ing any­thing to Frank.’

‘Why, you wouldn’t break both their hearts now?’

‘I don’t want to break their hearts, cer­tain­ly. But there are those who put their dear­est and warmest feel­ings un­der re­straint rather than de­vi­ate from what they know to be prop­er.’ Poor Au­gus­ta! she was the stern pro­fes­sor of the or­der of this phi­los­ophy; the last in the fam­ily who prac­tised with un­flinch­ing courage its cru­el be­hests; the last, al­ways ex­cept­ing the La­dy Amelia.

And how slept Frank that night? With him, at least, let us hope, nay, let us say bold­ly, that his hap­pi­est thoughts were not with the wealth which he was to ac­quire. But yet it would be some­thing to re­store Box­all Hill to Gre­shams­bury; some­thing to give back to his fa­ther those rum­pled vel­lum doc­uments, since the de­par­ture of which the squire had nev­er had a hap­py day; nay, some­thing to come forth again to his friends as a gay, young coun­try squire, in­stead of a farmer, clod-​com­pelling for his bread. We would not have him thought to be bet­ter than he was, nor would we wish him to make him of oth­er stuff than na­ture gen­er­al­ly us­es. His heart did ex­ult at Mary’s wealth; but it leaped high­er still when he thought of pur­er joys.

And what shall we say of Mary’s dreams? With her, it was al­to­geth­er what she should give, not at all what she should get. Frank had loved her so tru­ly when she was so poor, such an ut­ter cast­away; Frank, who with his beau­ty, and spir­it, and his tal­ents might have won the smiles of the rich­est, the grand­est, the no­blest! What la­dy’s heart would not have re­joiced to be al­lowed to love her Frank? But he had been true to her through ev­ery­thing. Ah! how of­ten she thought of that hour, when sud­den­ly ap­pear­ing be­fore her, he had strained her to his breast, just as she had re­solved how best to bear the death-​like chill of his sup­posed es­trange­ments! She was al­ways think­ing of that time. She fed her love by re­cur­ring over and over to the al­tered feel­ing of that mo­ment. Any now she could pay him for his good­ness. Pay him! No, that would be a base word, a base thought. Her pay­ment must be made, if God would so grant it, in many, many years to come. But her store, such as it was, should be emp­tied in­to his lap. It was sooth­ing to her pride that she would not hurt him by her love, that she would bring no in­jury to the old house. ‘Dear, dear Frank’ she mur­mured, as her wak­ing dream, con­quered at last by sleep, gave way to those of the fairy world.

But she thought not on­ly of Frank; dreamed not on­ly of him. What had he not done for her, that un­cle of hers, who had been more lov­ing to her than any fa­ther! How was he, too, to be paid? Paid, in­deed! Love can on­ly be paid in its own coin: it knows of no oth­er le­gal ten­der. Well, if her home was to be Gre­shams­bury, at any rate she would not be sep­arat­ed from him.

What the doc­tor dreamed of that, nei­ther he or any­one ev­er knew. ‘Why, un­cle, I think you’ve been asleep,’ said Mary to him that evening as he moved for a mo­ment un­easi­ly on the so­fa. He had been asleep for the last three-​quar­ters of an hour;–but Frank, his guest, had felt no of­fence. ‘No, I’ve not been ex­act­ly asleep,’ said he; ‘but I’m very tired. I wouldn’t do it all again, Frank, to dou­ble the mon­ey. You haven’t got any more tea, have you, Mary?’

On the fol­low­ing morn­ing, Beat­rice was of course with her friend. There was no awk­ward­ness be­tween them in meet­ing. Beat­rice had loved her when she was poor, and though they had not late­ly thought alike on one very im­por­tant sub­ject, Mary was too gra­cious to im­pute that to Beat­rice as a crime.

‘You will be one now, Mary; of course you will.’

‘If La­dy Ara­bel­la will let me come.’

‘Oh, Mary; let you! Do you re­mem­ber what you said once about com­ing, and be­ing near me? I have so of­ten thought of it. And now, Mary, I must tell you about Caleb;’ and the young la­dy set­tled her­self on the so­fa, so as to have a com­fort­able long talk. Beat­rice had been quite right. Mary was as meek with her, and as mild as a dove.

And then Pa­tience Oriel came. ‘My fine, young dar­ling, mag­nif­icent, over­grown heiress,’ said Pa­tience, em­brac­ing her. ‘My breath de­sert­ed me, and I was near­ly stunned when I heard of it. How small we shall all be, my dear! I am quite pre­pared to toady to you im­mense­ly; but pray be a lit­tle gra­cious to me, for the sake of auld lang syne.’

Mary gave a long, long kiss. ‘Yes, for auld lang syne, Pa­tience; when you took me away un­der your wing to Rich­mond.’ Pa­tience al­so had loved her when she was in trou­ble, and that love, too, should nev­er be for­got­ten.

But the great dif­fi­cul­ty was La­dy Ara­bel­la’s first meet­ing with her. ‘I think I’ll go down to her af­ter break­fast,’ said her la­dy­ship to Beat­rice, as the two were talk­ing over the mat­ter while the moth­er was fin­ish­ing her toi­let.

‘I am sure she will come up if you like it, mam­ma.’

‘She is en­ti­tled to ev­ery cour­tesy–as Frank’s ac­cept­ed bride, you know,’ said La­dy Ara­bel­la. ‘I would not for worlds fail in any re­spect to her for his sake.’

‘He will be glad enough for her to come, I am sure,’ said Beat­rice. ‘I was talk­ing to Caleb this morn­ing, and he says–’

The mat­ter was of im­por­tance, and La­dy Ara­bel­la gave it her most ma­ture con­sid­er­ation. The man­ner of re­ceiv­ing in­to one’s fam­ily an heiress whose wealth is cure all one’s dif­fi­cul­ties, dis­perse all one’s trou­bles, give a balm to all the wounds of mis­for­tune, must un­der any cir­cum­stances, be wor­thy of much care. But when that heiress had been treat­ed as Mary had been treat­ed!

‘I must see her, at any rate, be­fore I go to Cour­cy.’ said La­dy Ara­bel­la.

‘Are you go­ing to Cour­cy, mam­ma?’

‘Oh, cer­tain­ly; yes, I must see my sis­ter-​in-​law now. You don’t seem to re­al­ize the im­por­tance, my dear, of Frank’s mar­riage. He will be in a great hur­ry about it, and, in­deed, I can­not blame him. I ex­pect they will all come here.’

‘Who, mam­ma? The De Cour­cys?’

‘Yes, of course. I shall be very much sur­prised if the earl does not come now. And I must con­sult my sis­ter-​in-​law as to the ask­ing of the Duke of Om­ni­um.’

Poor Mary!

‘And I think it will per­haps be bet­ter,’ con­tin­ued La­dy Ara­bel­la, ‘that we should have a larg­er par­ty than in­tend­ed at your af­fair. The count­ess, I’m sure, would come now. We couldn’t put it off for ten days; could we, dear?’

‘Put it off ten days!’

‘Yes; it would be con­ve­nient.’

‘I don’t think Mr Oriel would like that at all, mam­ma. You know he has made all his ar­range­ments for his Sun­days–’

Pshaw! The idea of the par­son’s Sun­days be­ing al­lowed to have any bear­ing on such a mat­ter as Frank’s wed­ding would now be­come! Why, they would have–how much? Be­tween twelve and four­teen thou­sand a year! La­dy Ara­bel­la, who had made her cal­cu­la­tions a dozen times dur­ing the night, had nev­er found it to be much less than the larg­er sum. Mr Oriel’s Sun­days in­deed!

Af­ter much doubt, La­dy Ara­bel­la ac­ced­ed to her daugh­ter’s sug­ges­tion, that Mary should be re­ceived at Gre­shams­bury in­stead of be­ing called on at the doc­tor’s house. ‘If you think she won’t mind the com­ing up first,’ said her la­dy­ship. ‘I cer­tain­ly could re­ceive her bet­ter here. I should be more–more–more able, you know, to ex­press what I feel. We had bet­ter go in­to the big draw­ing-​room to-​day, Beat­rice. Will you re­mem­ber to tell Mrs Richards?’

‘Oh, cer­tain­ly,’ was Mary’s an­swer when Beat­rice, with a voice a lit­tle trem­bling, pro­posed her to walk up to the house. ‘Cer­tain­ly I will, if La­dy Ara­bel­la will re­ceive me;–on­ly, one thing, Trichy.’

‘What’s that, dear­est?’

‘Frank will think that I come af­ter him.’

‘Nev­er mind what he thinks. To tell you the truth, Mary, I of­ten call on Pa­tience for the sake of find­ing Caleb. That’s all fair now, you know.’

Mary very qui­et­ly got put on her straw bon­net, and said she was ready to go up to the house. Beat­rice was a lit­tle flut­tered, and showed it. Mary was, per­haps, a good deal flut­tered, but she did not show it. She had thought a good deal about her first in­ter­view with La­dy Ara­bel­la, of her first re­turn to the house; but she had re­solved to car­ry her­self as though the mat­ter were easy to her. She would not al­low it to be seen that she felt that she brought with her to Gre­shams­bury, com­fort, ease, and re­newed op­ulence.

So she put on her straw bon­net and walked up with Beat­rice. Ev­ery­body about the place had al­ready heard the news. The old wom­an at the lodge curt­sied low to her; the gar­den­er, who was mow­ing the lawn. The but­ler, who opened the front door–he must have been watch­ing Mary’s ap­proach–had man­ifest­ly put on a clean white neck­cloth for the oc­ca­sion.

‘God bless you once more, Miss Thorne!’ said the old man, in a half-​whis­per. Mary was some­what trou­bled, for ev­ery­thing seemed, in a man­ner, to bow down be­fore her. And why should not ev­ery­thing bow down be­fore her, see­ing that she was in truth the own­er of Gre­shams­bury?

And then a ser­vant in liv­ery would open the big draw­ing-​room door. This rather up­set both Mary and Beat­rice. It be­came al­most im­pos­si­ble for Mary to en­ter the room just as she would have done two years ago; but she got through the dif­fi­cul­ty with much self-​con­trol.

‘Mam­ma, here’s Mary,’ said Beat­rice.

Nor was La­dy Ara­bel­la quite mis­tress of her­self, al­though she had stud­ied minute­ly how to bear her­self.

‘Oh, Mary, dear Mary; what can I say to you?’ and then, with a hand­ker­chief to her eyes, she ran for­ward and hid her face in Miss Thorne’s shoul­ders. ‘What can I say–can you for­give my anx­iety for my son?’

‘How do you do, La­dy Ara­bel­la?’ said Mary.

‘My daugh­ter! my child! my Frank’s own bride! Oh, Mary! oh, my child! If I have seemed un­kind to you, it has been through love to him.’

‘All these things are over now,’ said Mary. ‘Mr Gre­sham told me yes­ter­day that I should be re­ceived as Frank’s fu­ture wife; and so, you see, I have come.’ And then she slipped through La­dy Ara­bel­la’s arms, and sat down, meek­ly down, on a chair. In five min­utes she had es­caped with Beat­rice in­to the school-​room, and was kiss­ing the chil­dren, and turn­ing over the new trousseau. They were, how­ev­er, soon in­ter­rupt­ed, and there was, per­haps, some oth­er kiss­ing be­sides that of the chil­dren.

‘You have no busi­ness here at all, Frank,’ said Beat­rice. ‘Has he, Mary?’

‘None in the world, I should think.’

‘See what he has done to my poplin; I hope you won’t have your things treat­ed so cru­el­ly. He’ll be care­ful enough about them.’

‘Is Oriel a good hand at pack­ing up fin­ery–eh, Beat­rice,’ said Frank.

‘He is, at any rate, too well-​be­haved to spoil it.’ Thus Mary was again made at home on the house­hold of Gre­shams­bury.

La­dy Ara­bel­la did not car­ry out her lit­tle plan of de­lay­ing the Oriel wed­ding. Her idea had been to add some grandeur to it, in or­der to make it a more fit­ting pre­cur­sor of that oth­er greater wed­ding which was to fol­low soon in its wake. But this, with the as­sis­tance of the count­ess, she found her­self able to do with­out in­ter­fer­ing with poor Mr Oriel’s Sun­day ar­range­ments. The count­ess her­self, with the Ladies Alexan­dri­na and Mar­garet­ta, now promised to come, even to the first af­fair; and for the oth­er, the whole De Cour­cy fam­ily would turn out, count and count­ess, lords and ladies, Hon­ourable Georges and Hon­ourable Johns. What hon­our, in­deed, could be too great to show to a bride who had four­teen thou­sand a year in her own right, or to a cousin, who had done his du­ty by se­cur­ing such a bride to him­self!

‘If the duke be in the coun­try, I am sure he will be hap­py to come,’ said the count­ess. ‘Of course, he will be talk­ing to Frank about pol­itics. I sup­pose the squire won’t ex­pect Frank to be­long to the old school now.’

‘Frank, of course, will judge for him­self, Rosi­na;–with his po­si­tion, you know!’ And so things were set­tled at Cour­cy Cas­tle.

And then Beat­rice was wed­ded and car­ried off to the Lakes. Mary, as she had promised, did stand near her; but not ex­act­ly in the ging­ham frock of which she had once spo­ken. She wore on that oc­ca­sion–But it will be too much, per­haps, to tell the read­er what she wore as Beat­rice’s brides­maid, see­ing that a cou­ple of pages, at least, must be de­vot­ed to her mar­riage-​dress, and see­ing, al­so, that we have on­ly a few pages to fin­ish ev­ery­thing; the list of vis­itors, the mar­riage set­tle­ments, the dress, and all in­clud­ed.

It was in vain that Mary en­deav­oured to re­press La­dy Ara­bel­la’s ar­dour for grand do­ings. Af­ter all, she was to be mar­ried from the doc­tor’s house, and not from Gre­shams­bury, and it was the doc­tor who should have in­vit­ed the guests; but, in this mat­ter, he did not choose to op­pose her la­dy­ship’s spir­it, and she had it all her own way.

‘What can I do?’ said he to Mary. ‘I have been con­tra­dict­ing her in ev­ery­thing for the last two years. The least we can do is to let her have her own way now in a tri­fle like this.’

But there was one point on which Mary would let no­body have his or her own way; on which the way to be tak­en was very man­ifest­ly to be her own. This was touch­ing the mar­riage set­tle­ments. It must not be sup­posed, that if Beat­rice were mar­ried on a Tues­day, Mary could be mar­ried on the Tues­day week fol­low­ing. Ladies with twelve thou­sand a year can­not be dis­posed of in that way: and bride­grooms who do their du­ty by mar­ry­ing mon­ey of­ten have to be kept wait­ing. It was spring, the ear­ly spring, be­fore Frank was made al­to­geth­er a hap­py man.

But a word about the set­tle­ments. On this sub­ject the doc­tor thought he would have been driv­en mad. Messrs Slow and Bideawhile, as the lawyers of the Gre­shams­bury fam­ily–it will be un­der­stood that Mr Gaze­bee’s law busi­ness was of quite a dif­fer­ent na­ture, and his work, as re­gard­ed Gre­shams­bury, was now near­ly over–Messrs Slow and Bideawhile de­clared that it would nev­er do for them to un­der­take alone to draw out the set­tle­ments. An heiress, such as Mary, must have lawyers of her own; half a dozen at least, ac­cord­ing to the ap­par­ent opin­ion of Messrs Slow and Bideawhile. And so the doc­tor had to go to oth­er lawyers, and they again had to con­sult Sir Abra­ham, and Mr Snil­am on a dozen dif­fer­ent heads.

If Frank be­came ten­ant in tail, in right of his wife, but un­der his fa­ther, would he be able to grant leas­es for more than twen­ty-​one years? and, if so, to whom would the right of tro­ver be­long? As to flot­sam and jet­sam–there was a lit­tle prop­er­ty, Mr Crit­ic, on the sea-​shore–that was a mat­ter that had to be left un­set­tled at the last. Such points as these do take a long time to con­sid­er. All this be­wil­dered the doc­tor sad­ly, and Frank him­self be­gan to make ac­cu­sa­tions that he was to be done out of his wife al­to­geth­er.

But, as we have said, there was one point on which Mary would have her own way. The lawyers might tie up as they would on her be­half all the mon­ey, and shares, and mort­gages which had be­longed to the late Sir Roger, with this ex­cep­tion, all that had ev­er ap­per­tained to Gre­shams­bury should be­long to Gre­shams­bury again; not in per­spec­tive, not to her chil­dren, or to her chil­dren’s chil­dren, but at once. Frank should be lord of Box­all Hill in his own right; and as to those oth­er liens on Gre­shams­bury, let Frank man­age that with his fa­ther as he might think fit. She would on­ly trou­ble her­self to see that he was em­pow­ered to do as he did think fit.

‘But,’ ar­gued the an­cient, re­spectable fam­ily at­tor­ney to the doc­tor, ‘that amounts to two-​thirds of the whole es­tate. Two-​thirds, Dr Thorne! It is pre­pos­ter­ous; I should al­most say im­pos­si­ble.’ And the scanty hairs on the poor man’s head al­most stood on end as he thought of the out­ra­geous man­ner in which the heiress pre­pared to sac­ri­fice her­self.

‘It will all be the same in the end,’ said the doc­tor, try­ing to make things smooth. ‘Of course, their joint ob­ject will be to put the Gre­shams­bury prop­er­ty to­geth­er again.’

‘But, my dear sir,’–and then, for twen­ty min­utes, the lawyer went on prov­ing that it would be no means be the same thing; but, nev­er­the­less, Mary Thorne did have her own way.

In the course of the win­ter, La­dy de Cour­cy tried very hard to in­duce the heiress to vis­it Cour­cy Cas­tle, and this re­quest was so backed by La­dy Ara­bel­la, that the doc­tor said he thought she might as well go there for three or four days. But here, again, Mary was ob­sti­nate.

‘I don’t see it at all,’ she said. ‘If you make a point of it, or Frank, or Mr Gre­sham, I will go; but I can’t see any pos­si­ble rea­son.’ The doc­tor, when so ap­pealed to, would not ab­so­lute­ly say that he made a point of it, and Mary was tol­er­ably safe as re­gard­ed Frank or the squire. If she went, Frank would be ex­pect­ed to go, and Frank dis­liked Cour­cy Cas­tle al­most more than ev­er. His aunt was now more than civ­il to him, and, when they were to­geth­er, nev­er ceased to com­pli­ment him on the de­sir­able way in which he had done his du­ty by the fam­ily.

And soon af­ter Christ­mas a vis­itor came to Mary, and stayed a fort­night with her: one whom nei­ther she nor the doc­tor had ex­pect­ed, and of whom they had not much more than heard. This was the fa­mous Miss Dun­sta­ble. ‘Birds of a feath­er flock to­geth­er,’ said Mrs Rant­away–late Miss Gush­ing–when she heard of the vis­it. ‘The rail­way man’s niece–if you can call her a niece–and the quack’s daugh­ter will do very well to­geth­er, no doubt.’

‘At any rate, they can count their mon­ey-​bags,’ said Mrs Um­ble­by.

And in fact, Mary and Miss Dun­sta­ble did get on very well to­geth­er; and Miss Dun­sta­ble made her­self quite hap­py at Gre­shams­bury, al­though some peo­ple–in­clud­ing Mrs Rant­away–con­trived to spread a re­port, that Dr Thorne, jeal­ous of Mary’s mon­ey was go­ing to mar­ry her.

‘I shall cer­tain­ly come and see you turned off,’ said Miss Dun­sta­ble, tak­ing leave of her new friend. Miss Dun­sta­ble, it must be ac­knowl­edged, was a lit­tle too fond of slang; but then, a la­dy with her for­tune, and of her age, may be fond of al­most what­ev­er she pleas­es.

And so by de­grees the win­ter wore away–very slow­ly to Frank, as he de­clared of­ten enough; and slow­ly, per­haps, to Mary al­so, but she did not say so. The spring came round. The com­ic al­manacs give us dread­ful pic­tures of Jan­uary and Febru­ary; but, in truth, the months which should be made to look gloomy in Eng­land are March and April. Let no man boast him­self that he has got through the per­ils of win­ter till at least the sev­enth of May.

It was ear­ly in April, how­ev­er, that the great do­ings were to be done at Gre­shams­bury. Not ex­act­ly on the first. It may be pre­sumed, that in spite of the prac­ti­cal, com­mon-​sense spir­it of the age, very few peo­ple do choose to have them­selves unit­ed on that day. But some day in the first week of that month was fixed for the cer­emo­ny, and from the end of Febru­ary all through March, La­dy Ara­bel­la worked and strove in a man­ner that en­ti­tled her to pro­found ad­mi­ra­tion.

It was at last set­tled that the break­fast should be held in the large din­ing-​room at Gre­shams­bury. There was a dif­fi­cul­ty about it which taxed La­dy Ara­bel­la to the ut­most, for, in mak­ing the propo­si­tion, she could not but seem to be throw­ing some slight on the house in which the heiress had lived. But when the af­fair was once opened to Mary, it was as­ton­ish­ing how easy it be­came.

‘Of course,’ said Mary, ‘all the rooms in our house would not hold half the peo­ple you are talk­ing about–if they must come.’

La­dy Ara­bel­la looked so be­seech­ing­ly, nay, so piteous­ly, that Mary had not an­oth­er word to say. It was ev­ident that they must all come: the De Cour­cys to the fifth gen­er­ation; the Duke of Om­ni­um him­self, and oth­ers in con­cate­na­tion ac­cord­ing­ly.

‘But will your un­cle be an­gry if we have the break­fast up there? He has been so very hand­some to Frank, that I wouldn’t make him an­gry for all the world.’

‘If you don’t tell him any­thing about it, La­dy Ara­bel­la, he’ll think that it is all done prop­er­ly. He will nev­er know, if he’s not told, that he ought to give the break­fast, not you.’

‘Won’t he, my dear?’ And La­dy Ara­bel­la looked her ad­mi­ra­tion for this very tal­ent­ed sug­ges­tion. And so that mat­ter was ar­ranged. The doc­tor nev­er knew, till Mary told him some year or so af­ter­wards, that he had been re­miss in any part of his du­ty.

And who was asked to the wed­ding? In the first place, we have said that the Duke of Om­ni­um was there. This was, in fact, the one cir­cum­stance that made this wed­ding so su­pe­ri­or to any oth­er that had ev­er tak­en place in that neigh­bour­hood. The Duke of Om­ni­um nev­er went any­where; and yet he went to Mary’s wed­ding! And Mary, when the cer­emo­ny was over, ab­so­lute­ly found her­self kissed by a duke. ‘Dear­est Mary!’ ex­claimed La­dy Ara­bel­la, in her ec­sta­sy of joy, when she saw the hon­our that was done to her daugh­ter-​in-​law.

‘I hope we shall in­duce you to come to Gatherum Cas­tle soon,’ said the duke to Frank. ‘I shall be hav­ing a few friends there in the au­tumn. Let me see; I de­clare, I have not seen you since you were good enough to come to my col­lec­tion. Ha! ha! ha! It wasn’t bad fun, was it?’ Frank was not very cor­dial with his an­swer. He had not quite rec­on­ciled him­self to the dif­fer­ence of his po­si­tion. When he was treat­ed as one of the ‘col­lec­tion’ at Gatherum Cas­tle, he had not mar­ried mon­ey.

It would be vain to enu­mer­ate all the De Cour­cys that were there. There was the earl, look­ing very gra­cious, and talk­ing to the squire about the coun­ty. And there was Lord Por­lock, look­ing very un­gra­cious, and not talk­ing to any­body about any­thing. And there was the count­ess, who for the last week had done noth­ing but pat Frank on the back when­ev­er she could catch him. And there were the Ladies Alexan­dri­na, Mar­garet­ta, and Seli­na, smil­ing at ev­ery­body. And the Hon­ourable George, talk­ing in whis­pers to Frank about his wid­ow–’Not such a catch as yours, you know; but some­thing ex­treme­ly snug;–and have it all my own way, too, old fel­low, or I shan’t come to the scratch.’ And the Hon­ourable John pre­pared to toady Frank about his string of hunters; and the La­dy Amelia, by her­self, not quite con­tent­ed with these demo­crat­ic nup­tials–’Af­ter all, she is so ab­so­lute­ly no­body; ab­so­lute­ly, ab­so­lute­ly,’ she said con­fi­den­tial­ly to Au­gus­ta, shak­ing her head. But be­fore La­dy Amelia had left Gre­shams­bury, Au­gus­ta was quite at a loss to un­der­stand how there could be need for so much con­ver­sa­tion be­tween her cousin and Mr Mor­timer Gaze­bee.

And there were many more De Cour­cys, whom to enu­mer­ate would be much too long.

And the bish­op of the dio­cese, and Mrs Proudie were there. A hint had even been giv­en, that his lord­ship would him­self con­de­scend to per­form the cer­emo­ny, if this should be wished; but that work had al­ready been an­tic­ipat­ed by a very old friend of the Gre­shams. Archdea­con Grant­ly, the rec­tor of Plum­stead Epis­copi, had long since un­der­tak­en this part of the busi­ness; and the knot was even­tu­al­ly tied by the joint ef­forts of him­self and Mr Oriel. Mrs Grant­ly came with him, and so did Mrs Grant­ly’s sis­ter, the new dean’s wife. The dean him­self was at the time un­for­tu­nate­ly ab­sent at Ox­ford.

And all the Bak­ers and the Jack­sons were there. The last time they had all met to­geth­er un­der the squire’s roof, was on the oc­ca­sion of Frank’s com­ing of age. The present gala do­ings were car­ried on a very dif­fer­ent spir­it. That had been a very poor af­fair, but this was wor­thy of the best of Gre­shams­bury.

Oc­ca­sion al­so had been tak­en of this hap­py mo­ment to make up, or rather to get rid of the last shreds of the last feud that had so long sep­arat­ed Dr Thorne from his own rel­atives. The Thornes of Ul­lathorne had made many over­tures in a covert way. But our doc­tor had con­trived to re­ject them. ‘They would not re­ceive Mary as their cousin,’ said he, ‘and I will go nowhere that she can­not go.’ But now all this was al­tered. Mrs Gre­sham would cer­tain­ly be re­ceived in any house in the coun­ty. And thus, Mr Thorne of Ul­lathorne, an ami­able, pop­ular old bach­elor, came to the wed­ding; and so did his maid­en sis­ter Miss Thorne, than whose no kinder heart glowed all through Barset­shire.

‘My dear,’ said she to Mary, kiss­ing her, and of­fer­ing her some lit­tle trib­ute, ‘I am very glad to make your ac­quain­tance; very. It was not her fault,’ she added, speak­ing to her­self. ‘And now that she will be a Gre­sham, that need not be any longer be thought of.’ Nev­er­the­less, could Miss Thorne have spo­ken her in­ward thoughts out loud, she would have de­clared, that Frank would have done bet­ter to have borne his pover­ty than mar­ry wealth with­out blood. But then, there are but few so stanch as Miss Thorne; per­haps none in the coun­ty–al­ways ex­cept­ing the la­dy Amelia.

And Miss Dun­sta­ble, al­so, was a brides­maid. ‘Oh, no’ said she, when asked; ‘you should have them young and pret­ty.’ But she gave way when she found that Mary did not flat­ter her by telling her that she was ei­ther the one or the oth­er. ‘The truth is,’ said Miss Dun­sta­ble, ‘I have al­ways been a lit­tle in love with your Frank, and so I shall do it for his sake.’ There were but four: the oth­er two were the Gre­sham twins. La­dy Ara­bel­la ex­ert­ed her­self great­ly in fram­ing hints to in­duce Mary to ask some of the De Cour­cy ladies to do her so much hon­our; but on this head Mary would please her­self. ‘Rank,’ she said to Beat­rice, with a curl on her lip, ‘has its draw­backs–and must put up with them.’

And now I find that I have not one page–not half a page–for the wed­ding-​dress. But what mat­ters? Will it not be all found writ­ten in the columns of the Morn­ing Post?

And thus Frank mar­ried mon­ey, and be­came a great man. Let us hope that he will be a hap­py man. As the time of the sto­ry has been brought down so near to the present era, it is not prac­ti­ca­ble for the nov­el­ist to tell much of his fu­ture ca­reer. When I last heard from Barset­shire, it seemed to be quite set­tled that he is to take the place of one of the old mem­bers at the next elec­tion; and they say, al­so, that there is no chance of any op­po­si­tion. I have heard, too, that there have been many very pri­vate con­sul­ta­tions be­tween him and var­ious gen­tle­men of the coun­ty, with ref­er­ence to the hunt; and the gen­er­al feel­ing is said to be that the hounds should go to Box­all Hill.

At Box­all Hill the young peo­ple es­tab­lished them­selves on their re­turn from the con­ti­nent. And that re­minds me that one word must be said of La­dy Scatcherd.

‘You will al­ways stay here with us,’ said Mary to her, ca­ress­ing her la­dy­ship’s rough hand, and look­ing kind­ly in­to that kind face.

But La­dy Scatcherd would not con­sent to this. ‘I will come and see you some­times, and then I shall en­joy my­self. Yes, I will come and see you, and my own dear boy.’ The af­fair was end­ed by her tak­ing Mrs Opie Green’s cot­tage, in or­der that she might be near the doc­tor; Mrs Opie Green hav­ing mar­ried–some­body.

And of whom else must we say a word? Pa­tience, al­so, of course, got a hus­band–or will do so. Dear Pa­tience! it would be a thou­sand pities that so good a wife should be lost to the world. Whether Miss Dun­sta­ble will ev­er be mar­ried, or Au­gus­ta Gre­sham, or Mr Mof­fat, or any of the tribe of the De Cour­cys–ex­cept La­dy Amelia–I can­not say. They have all of them still their fu­ture be­fore them. That Brid­get was mar­ried to Thomas–that I am able to as­sert; for I know that Janet was much put out by their joint de­ser­tion.

La­dy Ara­bel­la has not yet lost her ad­mi­ra­tion for Mary, and Mary, in re­turn, be­haves ad­mirably. An­oth­er event is ex­pect­ed, and her la­dy­ship is al­most as anx­ious about that as she was about the wed­ding. ‘A mat­ter, you know, of much im­por­tance in the coun­ty!’ she whis­pered to La­dy De Cour­cy.

Noth­ing can be more hap­py than the in­ter­course be­tween the squire and his son. What their ex­act ar­range­ments are, we need not spe­cial­ly in­quire; but the de­mon of pe­cu­niary em­bar­rass­ment has lift­ed his black wings from the demesne of Gre­shams­bury.

And now we have but one word left for the doc­tor. ‘If you don’t come and dine with me,’ said the squire to him, when they found them­selves both de­sert­ed, ‘mind I shall come and dine with you.’ And on this prin­ci­ple they seem to act. Dr Thorne con­tin­ues to ex­tend his prac­tice, to the great dis­gust of Dr Fill­grave; and when Mary sug­gest­ed to him that he should re­tire, he al­most boxed her ears. He knows the way, how­ev­er, to Box­all Hill as well as he ev­er did, and is will­ing to ac­knowl­edge, that the tea there is al­most as good as it ev­er was at Gre­shams­bury.

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