Dr Thorne

CHAPTER VIII

MAT­RI­MO­NI­AL PROSPECTS

It will of course be re­mem­bered that Mary’s in­ter­view with the oth­er girls at Gre­shams­bury took place some two or three days sub­se­quent­ly to Frank’s gen­er­ous of­fer of his hand and heart. Mary had quite made up her mind that the whole thing was to be re­gard­ed as a fol­ly, and that it was not to be spo­ken of to any one; but yet her heart was sore enough. She was full of pride, and yet she knew she must bow her neck to the pride of oth­ers. Be­ing, as she was her­self, name­less, she could not but feel a stern, un­flinch­ing an­tag­onism, the an­tag­onism of a demo­crat, to the pre­ten­sions of oth­ers who were blessed with that of which she had been de­prived. She had this feel­ing; and yet, of all the things that she cov­et­ed, she most cov­et­ed that, for glo­ry­ing in which, she was de­ter­mined to heap scorn on oth­ers. She said to her­self, proud­ly, that God’s hand­iwork was the in­ner man, the in­ner wom­an, the naked crea­ture an­imat­ed by a liv­ing soul; that all oth­er ad­juncts were but man’s cloth­ing for the crea­ture; all oth­ers, whether stitched by tai­lors or con­trived by kings. Was it not with­in her ca­pac­ity to do as nobly, to love as tru­ly, to wor­ship her God in heav­en with as per­fect a faith, and her god on earth with as leal a troth, as though blood had de­scend­ed to her pure­ly through scores of pure­ly born pro­gen­itors? So to her­self she spoke; and yet, as she said it, she knew that were she a man, such a man as the heir of Gre­shams­bury should be, noth­ing would tempt her to sul­ly her chil­dren’s blood by mat­ing her­self with any one that was base born. She felt that were she Au­gus­ta Gre­sham, no Mr Mof­fat, let his wealth be what it might, should win her hand un­less he too could tell of fam­ily hon­ours and a line of an­ces­tors.

And so, with a mind at war with it­self, she came forth armed to do bat­tle against the world’s prej­udices, those prej­udices she her­self loved so well.

And was she thus to give up her old af­fec­tions, her fem­inine loves, be­cause she found that she was a cousin to no­body? Was she no longer to pour out her heart to Beat­rice Gre­sham with all the girl­ish vol­ubil­ity of an equal? Was she to be sev­ered from Pa­tience Oriel, and ban­ished–or rather was she to ban­ish her­self–from the free place she had main­tained in the var­ious youth­ful fe­male con­claves with­in that parish of Gre­shams­bury?

Hith­er­to, what Mary Thorne would say, what Miss Thorne sug­gest­ed in such and such a mat­ter, was quite as fre­quent­ly asked as any opin­ion from Au­gus­ta Gre­sham–quite as fre­quent­ly, un­less when it chanced that any of the De Cour­cy girls were at the house. Was this to be giv­en up? These feel­ings had grown up among them since they were chil­dren, and had not hith­er­to been ques­tioned among them. Now they were ques­tioned by Mary Thorne. Was she in fact to find that her po­si­tion had been a false one, and must be changed?

Such had been her feel­ings when she protest­ed that she would not be Au­gus­ta Gre­sham’s brides­maid, and of­fered to put her neck be­neath Beat­rice’s foot; when she drove the La­dy Mar­garet­ta out of the room, and gave her own opin­ion as to the prop­er gram­mat­ical con­struc­tion of the word hum­ble; such al­so had been her feel­ings when she kept her hand so rigid­ly to her­self while Frank held the din­ing-​room door open for her to pass through.

‘Pa­tience Oriel,’ said she to her­self, ‘can talk to him of her fa­ther and moth­er: let Pa­tience take his hand; let her talk to him;’ and then, not long af­ter­wards, she saw that Pa­tience did talk to him; and see­ing it, she walked along silent, among some of the old peo­ple, and with much ef­fort did pre­vent a tear from falling down her cheek.

But why was the tear in her eye? Had she not proud­ly told Frank that his love-​mak­ing was noth­ing but a boy’s sil­ly rhap­sody? Had she not said so while she had yet rea­son to hope that her blood was as good as his own? Had she not seen at a glance that his love tirade was wor­thy of ridicule, and of no oth­er no­tice? And yet there was a tear now in her eye be­cause this boy, whom she had scold­ed from her, whose hand, of­fered in pure friend­ship, she had just re­fused, be­cause he, so re­buffed by her, had car­ried his fun and gal­lantry to one who would be less cross to him!

She could hear as she was walk­ing, that while La­dy Mar­garet­ta was with them, their voic­es were loud and mer­ry; and her sharp ear could al­so hear, when La­dy Mar­garet­ta left them, that Frank’s voice be­came low and ten­der. So she walked on, say­ing noth­ing, look­ing straight be­fore her, and by de­grees sep­arat­ing her­self from all the oth­ers.

The Gre­shams­bury grounds were on one side some­what too close­ly hemmed in by the vil­lage. On this side was a path run­ning the length of one of the streets of the vil­lage; and far down the path, near the ex­trem­ity of the gar­dens, and near al­so to a wick­et-​gate which led out in­to the vil­lage, and which could be opened from the in­side, was a seat, un­der a big yew-​tree, from which, through a breach in the hous­es, might be seen the parish church, stand­ing in the park on the oth­er side. Hith­er Mary walked alone, and here she seat­ed her­self, de­ter­mined to get rid of her tears and their traces be­fore she again showed her­self to the world.

‘I shall nev­er be hap­py here again,’ said she to her­self; ‘nev­er. I am no longer one of them, and I can­not live among them un­less I am so.’ And then an idea came across her mind that she hat­ed Pa­tience Oriel; and then, in­stant­ly an­oth­er idea fol­lowed–quick as such thoughts are quick–that she did not hate Pa­tience Oriel at all; that she liked her, nay, loved her; that Pa­tience Oriel was a sweet girl; and that she hoped the time would come when she might see her the la­dy of Gre­shams­bury. And then the tear, which had been no whit con­trolled, which in­deed had now made it­self mas­ter of her, came to a head, and, burst­ing through the flood­gates of the eye, came rolling down, and in its fall, wet­ted her hand as it lay on her lap. ‘What a fool! what an id­iot! what an emp­ty-​head­ed cow­ard­ly fool I am!’ said she, spring­ing up from the bench on her feet.

As she did so, she heard voic­es close to her, at the lit­tle gate. They were those of her un­cle and Frank Gre­sham.

‘God bless you, Frank!’ said the doc­tor, as he passed out of the grounds. ‘You will ex­cuse a lec­ture, won’t you, from so old a friend?–though you are a man now, and dis­creet of course, by Act of Par­lia­ment.’

‘In­deed I will, doc­tor,’ said Frank. ‘I will ex­cuse a longer lec­ture than that from you.’

‘At any rate it won’t be tonight,’ said the doc­tor, as he dis­ap­peared. ‘And if you see Mary, tell her that I am obliged to go; and that I will send Janet down to fetch her.’

Now Janet was the doc­tor’s an­cient maid-​ser­vant.

Mary could not move on, with­out be­ing per­ceived; she there­fore stood still till she heard the click of the door, and then be­gan walk­ing rapid­ly back to the house by the path which had brought her thith­er. The mo­ment, how­ev­er, that she did so, she found that she was fol­lowed; and in a very few mo­ments Frank was along­side of her.

‘Oh, Mary!’ said he, call­ing to her, but not loud­ly, be­fore he quite over­took her, ‘how odd that I should come across you just when I have a mes­sage for you! and why are you all alone?’

Mary’s first im­pulse was to re­it­er­ate her com­mand to him to call her no more by her Chris­tian name; but her sec­ond im­pulse told her that such an in­junc­tion at the present mo­ment would not be pru­dent on her part. The traces of her tears were still there; and she well knew that a very lit­tle, the slight­est show of ten­der­ness on his part, the slight­est ef­fort on her own to ap­pear in­dif­fer­ent, would bring down more than one oth­er such in­trud­er. It would, more­over, be bet­ter for her to drop all out­ward sign that she re­mem­bered what had tak­en place. So long, then, as he and she were at Gre­shams­bury to­geth­er, he should call her Mary if he pleased. He would soon be gone; and while he re­mained, she would keep out of his way.

‘Your un­cle has been obliged to go away to see an old wom­an at Sil­ver­bridge.’

‘At Sil­ver­bridge! why, he won’t be back all night. Why could not the old wom­an send for Dr Cen­tu­ry?’

‘I sup­pose she thought two old wom­en could not get on well to­geth­er.’

Mary could not help smil­ing. She did not like her un­cle go­ing off so late on such a jour­ney; but it was al­ways felt a tri­umph when he was in­vit­ed in­to the strongholds of the en­emies.

‘And Janet is to come over for you. How­ev­er, I told him it was quite un­nec­es­sary to dis­turb an­oth­er old wom­an, for that I should see you home.’

‘Oh, no, Mr Gre­sham; in­deed you’ll not do that.’

‘In­deed, and in­deed, I shall.’

‘What! on this great day, when ev­ery la­dy is look­ing for you, and talk­ing of you. I sup­pose you want to set the count­ess against me for ev­er. Think, too, how an­gry La­dy Ara­bel­la will be if you are ab­sent on such and er­rand as this.’

‘To hear you talk, Mary, one would think that you were go­ing to Sil­ver­bridge your­self.’

‘Per­haps I am.’

‘If I did not go with you, some of the oth­er fel­lows would. John, or George–’

‘Good gra­cious, Frank! Fan­cy ei­ther of the Mr De Courceys walk­ing home with me!’

She had for­got­ten her­self, and the strict pro­pri­ety on which she had re­solved, in the im­pos­si­bil­ity of for­go­ing her lit­tle joke against the De Cour­cy grandeur; she had for­got­ten her­self, and had called him Frank in her old, for­mer, ea­ger, free tone of voice; and then, re­mem­ber­ing she had done so, she drew her­self up, but her lips, and de­ter­mined to be dou­bly on her guard in the fu­ture.

‘Well, it shall be ei­ther one of them, or I,’ said Frank: ‘per­haps you would pre­fer my cousin George to me?’

‘I should pre­fer Janet to ei­ther, see­ing that with her I should not suf­fer the ex­treme nui­sance of know­ing that I was a bore.’

‘A bore! Mary, to me?’

‘Yes, Mr Gre­sham, a bore to you. Hav­ing to walk home through the mud with vil­lage young ladies is bor­ing. All gen­tle­men feel it so.’

‘There is no mud; if there were you would not be al­lowed to walk at all.’

‘Oh! vil­lage young ladies nev­er care for such things, though fash­ion­able gen­tle­men do.’

‘I would car­ry you home, Mary, if it would do you a ser­vice,’ said Frank, with con­sid­er­able pathos in his voice.

‘Oh, dear me! pray do not, Mr Gre­sham. I should not like it at all,’ said she: ‘a wheel­bar­row would be prefer­able to that.’

‘Of course. Any­thing would be prefer­able to my arm, I know.’

‘Cer­tain­ly; any­thing in the way of a con­veyance. If I were to act ba­by; and you were to act nurse, it re­al­ly would not be com­fort­able for ei­ther of us.’

Frank Gre­sham felt dis­con­cert­ed, though he hard­ly knew why. He was striv­ing to say some­thing ten­der to his la­dy-​love; but ev­ery word that he spoke she turned in­to joke. Mary did not an­swer him cold­ly or un­kind­ly; but, nev­er­the­less, he was dis­pleased. One does not like to have one’s lit­tle of­fer­ings of sen­ti­men­tal ser­vice turned in­to bur­lesque when one is in love in earnest. Mary’s jokes had ap­peared so easy too; they seemed to come from a heart so lit­tle trou­bled. This, al­so, was cause of vex­ation to Frank. If he could but have known it all, he would, per­haps, have been bet­ter pleased.

He de­ter­mined not to be ab­so­lute­ly laughed out of his ten­der­ness. When, three days ago, he had been re­pulsed, he had gone away own­ing to him­self that he had been beat­en; own­ing so much, but own­ing it with great sor­row and much shame. Since that he had come of age; since that he had made speech­es, and speech­es had been made to him; since that he had gained courage by flirt­ing with Pa­tience Oriel. No faint heart ev­er won a fair la­dy, as he was well aware; he re­solved, there­fore, that his heart should not be faint, and that he would see whether the fair la­dy might not be won by be­com­ing au­dac­ity.

‘Mary,’ said he, stop­ping in the path–for they were now near the spot where it broke out up­on the lawn, and they could al­ready hear the voic­es of the guests–’Mary, you are un­kind to me.’

‘I am not aware of it, Mr Gre­sham; but if I am, do not you re­tal­iate. I am weak­er than you, and in your pow­er; do not you, there­fore, be un­kind to me.’

‘You re­fused my hand just now,’ con­tin­ued he. ‘Of all the peo­ple here at Gre­shams­bury, you are the on­ly one that has not wished me joy; the on­ly one–’

‘I do wish you joy; I will wish you joy: there is my hand,’ and she frankly put out her un­gloved hand. ‘You are quite man enough to un­der­stand me: there is my hand; I trust you use it on­ly as it is meant to be used.’

He took it in his hand and pressed it cor­dial­ly, as he might have done that of any oth­er friend in such a case; and then–did not drop it as he should have done. He was not a St An­tho­ny, and it was most im­pru­dent in Miss Thorne to sub­ject him to such a temp­ta­tion.

‘Mary,’ said he; ‘dear Mary! dear­est Mary! if you did but know how I love you!’

As he said this, hold­ing Miss Thorne’s hand he stood on the path­way with his back to­wards the lawn and house, and, there­fore, did not at first see his sis­ter Au­gus­ta, who had just at that mo­ment come up­on them. Mary blushed up to her straw hat, and, with a quick jerk, re­cov­ered her hand. Au­gus­ta saw the mo­tion, and Mary saw that Au­gus­ta had seen it.

From my te­dious way of telling it, the read­er will be led to imag­ine that the hand-​squeez­ing had been pro­tract­ed to a du­ra­tion quite in­com­pat­ible with any ob­jec­tion to such an ar­range­ment on the part of the la­dy; but the fault is mine: in no part hers. Were I pos­sessed of a quick spas­mod­ic style of nar­ra­tive, I should have been able to in­clude it all–Frank’s mis­be­haviour, Mary’s im­me­di­ate anger, Au­gus­ta’s ar­rival, and keen, Ar­gus-​eyed in­spec­tion, and then Mary’s sub­se­quent mis­ery–in five words and half a dozen dash­es and in­vert­ed com­mas. The thing would have been so told; for, to do Mary jus­tice, she did not leave her hand in Frank’s a mo­ment longer than she could help her­self.

Frank, feel­ing the hand with­drawn, and hear­ing, when it was too late, the step on the grav­el, turned sharply round. ‘Oh, it’s you, is it, Au­gus­ta? Well, what do you want?’

Au­gus­ta was not nat­ural­ly very ill-​na­tured, see­ing that in her veins the high De Cour­cy blood was some­what tem­pered by an ad­mix­ture of the Gre­sham at­tributes; nor was she pre­dis­posed to make her broth­er her en­emy by pub­lish­ing to the world any of his lit­tle ten­der pec­ca­dil­loes; but she could not but be­think her­self of what her aunt had been say­ing as to the dan­ger of any such en­coun­ters as that she just now had be­held; she could not but start at see­ing her broth­er thus, on the very brink of the precipice of which the count­ess had spe­cial­ly fore­warned her moth­er. She, Au­gus­ta, was, as she well knew, do­ing her du­ty by her fam­ily by mar­ry­ing a tai­lor’s son for whom she did not care a chip, see­ing that the tai­lor’s son was pos­sessed of un­told wealth. Now when one mem­ber of a house­hold is mak­ing a strug­gle for a fam­ily, it is painful to see the ben­efit of that strug­gle neg­atived by the fol­ly of an­oth­er mem­ber. The fu­ture Mrs Mof­fat did feel ag­grieved by the fa­tu­ity of the young heir, and, con­se­quent­ly, took up­on her­self to look as much like her Aunt De Cour­cy as she could do.

‘Well, what is it?’ said Frank, look­ing rather dis­gust­ed. ‘What makes you stick your chin up and look in that way?’ Frank had hith­er­to been rather a despot among his sis­ters, and for­got that the el­dest of them was now pass­ing al­to­geth­er from un­der his sway to that of the tai­lor’s son.

‘Frank,’ said Au­gus­ta, in a tone of voice which did hon­our to the great lessons she had late­ly re­ceived. ‘Aunt De Cour­cy wants to see you im­me­di­ate­ly in the small draw­ing-​room;’ and, as she said so, she re­solved to say a few words of ad­vice to Miss Thorne as soon as her broth­er should have left them.

‘In the small draw­ing-​room, does she? Well, Mary, we may as well go to­geth­er, for I sup­pose it is tea-​time now.’

‘You had bet­ter go at once, Frank,’ said Au­gus­ta; ‘the count­ess will be an­gry if you keep her wait­ing. She has been ex­pect­ing you these twen­ty min­utes. Mary Thorne and I can re­turn to­geth­er.’

There was some­thing in the tone in which the word, ‘Mary Thorne’, were ut­tered, which made Mary at once draw her­self up. ‘I hope,’ said she, ‘that Mary Thorne will nev­er be a hin­drance to ei­ther of you.’

Frank’s ear had al­so per­ceived that there was some­thing in the tone of his sis­ter’s voice not bod­ing com­fort to Mary; he per­ceived that the De Cour­cy blood in Au­gus­ta’s veins was al­ready re­belling against the doc­tor’s niece on his part, though it had con­de­scend­ed to sub­mit it­self to the tai­lor’s son on her own part.

‘Well, I am go­ing,’ said he; ‘but look here Au­gus­ta, if you say one word of Mary–’

Oh, Frank! Frank! you boy, you very boy! you goose, you sil­ly goose! Is that the way you make love, de­sir­ing one girl not to tell an­oth­er, as though you were three chil­dren, tear­ing your frocks and trousers in get­ting through the same hedge to­geth­er? Oh, Frank! Frank! you, the full-​blown heir of Gre­shams­bury? You, a man al­ready en­dowed with a man’s dis­cre­tion? You, the for­ward rid­er, that did but now threat­en young Har­ry Bak­er and the Hon­ourable John to eclipse them by prowess in the field? You, of age? Why, thou canst not as yet have left thy moth­er’s apron-​string.

‘If you say one word of Mary–’

So far had he got in his in­junc­tion to his sis­ter, but fur­ther than that, in such a case, was he nev­er des­tined to pro­ceed. Mary’s in­dig­na­tion flashed up­on him, strik­ing him dumb long be­fore the sound of her voice reached his ears; and yet she spoke as quick as the words would come to her call, and some­what loud­ly too.

‘Say one word of Mary, Mr Gre­sham! And why should she not say as many words of Mary as she may please? I must tell you all now, Au­gus­ta! and I must al­so beg you not to be silent for my sake. As far as I am con­cerned, tell it to whom you please. This was the sec­ond time your broth­er–’

‘Mary, Mary,’ said Frank, dep­re­cat­ing her lo­quaci­ty.

‘I beg your par­don, Mr Gre­sham; you have made it nec­es­sary that I should tell your sis­ter all. He has now twice thought it well to amuse him­self by say­ing to me words which it was ill-​na­tured in him to speak, and–’

‘Ill-​na­tured, Mary!’

‘Ill-​na­tured in him to speak,’ con­tin­ued Mary, ‘and to which it would be ab­surd for me to lis­ten. He prob­ably does the same to oth­ers,’ she added, be­ing un­able in heart to for­get that sharpest of her wounds, that flir­ta­tion of his with Pa­tience Oriel; ‘but to me it is al­most cru­el. An­oth­er girl might laugh at him, or lis­ten to him, as he would choose; but I can do nei­ther. I shall now keep away from Gre­shams­bury, at any rate till he has left it; and, Au­gus­ta, I can on­ly beg you to un­der­stand, that, as far as I am con­cerned, there is noth­ing which may not be told to all the world.’

And, so say­ing, she walked on a lit­tle in ad­vance of them, as proud as a queen. Had La­dy de Cour­cy her­self met her at this mo­ment, she would al­most have felt her­self forced to shrink out of the path­way. ‘Not say a word of me!’ she re­peat­ed to her­self, but still out loud. ‘No word need be left un­said on my ac­count; none, none.’

Au­gus­ta fol­lowed her, dum­found­ed at her in­dig­na­tion; and Frank al­so fol­lowed, but not in si­lence. When his first sur­prise at Mary’s great anger was over, he felt him­self called up­on to say some word that might ex­on­er­ate his la­dy-​love; and some word al­so of protes­ta­tion as to his own pur­pose.

‘There is noth­ing to be told, at least of Mary,’ he said, speak­ing to his sis­ter; ‘but of me, you may tell this, if you choose to dis­oblige your broth­er–that I love Mary Thorne with all my heart; and that I will nev­er love any­one else.’

By this time they had reached the lawn, and Mary was able to turn away from the path which led up to the house. As she left them she said in a voice, now low enough, ‘I can­not pre­vent him from talk­ing non­sense, Au­gus­ta; but you will bear me wit­ness, that I do not will­ing­ly hear it.’ And, so say­ing, she start­ed off al­most in a run to­wards the dis­tant part of the gar­dens, in which she saw Beat­rice.

Frank, as he walked up to the house with his sis­ter, en­deav­oured to in­duce her to give him a promise that she would tell no tales as to what she had heard and seen.

‘Of course, Frank, it must be all non­sense,’ she had said; ‘and you shouldn’t amuse your­self in such a way.’

‘Well, but, Guss, come, we have al­ways been friends; don’t let us quar­rel just when you are go­ing to be mar­ried.’ But Au­gus­ta would make no promise.

Frank, when he reached the house, found the count­ess wait­ing for him, sit­ting in the lit­tle draw­ing-​room by her­self,–some­what im­pa­tient­ly. As he en­tered he be­came aware that there was some pe­cu­liar grav­ity at­tached to the com­ing in­ter­view. Three per­sons, his moth­er, one of his younger sis­ters, and the La­dy Amelia, each stopped him to let him know that the count­ess was wait­ing; and he per­ceived that a sort of guard was kept up­on the door to save her la­dy­ship from any un­de­sir­able in­tru­sion.

The count­ess frowned at the mo­ment of his en­trance, but soon smoothed her brow, and in­vit­ed him to take a chair ready pre­pared for him op­po­site to the el­bow of the so­fa on which she was lean­ing. She had a small ta­ble be­fore her, on which was her teacup, so that she was able to preach at him near­ly as well as though she had been en­sconced in a pul­pit.

‘My dear Frank,’ said she, in a voice thor­ough­ly suit­able to the im­por­tance of the com­mu­ni­ca­tion, ‘you have to-​day come of age.’

Frank re­marked that he un­der­stood that such was the case, and added that ‘that was the rea­son for all the fuss.’

‘Yes; you have to-​day come of age. Per­haps I should have been glad to see such an oc­ca­sion no­ticed at Gre­shams­bury with some more suit­able signs of re­joic­ing.’

‘Oh, aunt! I think we did it all very well.’

‘Gre­shams­bury, Frank, is, or at any rate ought to be, the seat of the first com­mon­er in Barset­shire.

‘Well; so it is. I am quite sure there isn’t a bet­ter fel­low than fa­ther any­where in the coun­ty.’

The count­ess sighed. Her opin­ion of the poor squire was very dif­fer­ent from Frank’s. ‘It is no use now,’ said she, ‘look­ing back to that which can­not be cured. The first com­mon­er in Barset­shire should hold a po­si­tion–I will not of course say equal to that of a peer.’

‘Oh dear no; of course not,’ said Frank; and a by­stander might have thought that there was a touch of satire in his tone.

‘No, not equal to that of a peer; but still of very paramount im­por­tance. Of course my first am­bi­tion is bound up in Por­lock.’

‘Of course,’ said Frank, think­ing how very weak was the staff on which his aunt’s am­bi­tion rest­ed; for Lord Por­lock’s youth­ful ca­reer had not been such as to give un­mit­igat­ed sat­is­fac­tion to his par­ents.

‘Is bound up in Por­lock:’ and then the count­ess plumed her­self; but the moth­er sighed. ‘And next to Por­lock, my anx­iety is about you.’

‘Up­on my hon­our, aunt, I am very much obliged. I shall be all right, you know.’

‘Gre­shams­bury, my dear boy, is not now what it used to be.’

‘Isn’t it?’ asked Frank.

‘No, Frank; by no means. I do not wish to say a word against your fa­ther. It may, per­haps have been his mis­for­tune, rather than his fault–’

‘She is al­ways down on the gov­er­nor; al­ways,’ said Frank to him­self; re­solv­ing to stick brave­ly to the side of the house to which he had elect­ed to be­long.

‘But there is the fact, Frank, too plain to us all; Gre­shams­bury is not what it was. It is your du­ty to re­store it to its for­mer im­por­tance.’

‘My du­ty!’ said Frank, rather puz­zled.

‘Yes, Frank, your du­ty. It all de­pends on you now. Of course you know that your fa­ther owes a great deal of mon­ey.’

Frank mut­tered some­thing. Tid­ings had in some shape reached his ear that his fa­ther was not com­fort­ably cir­cum­stances as re­gards mon­ey.

‘And then, he has sold Box­all Hill. It can­not be ex­pect­ed that Box­all Hill shall be pur­chased, as some hor­rid man, a rail­way-​mak­er, I be­lieve–’

‘Yes; that’s Scatcherd.’

‘Well, he has built a house there, I’m told; so I pre­sume that it can­not be bought back: but it will be your du­ty, Frank, to pay all the debts that there are on the prop­er­ty, and to pur­chase what, at any rate, will be equal to Box­all Hill.’

Frank opened his eyes wide and stared at his aunt, as though doubt­ing much whether or no she were in her right mind. He pay off the fam­ily debts! He buy up prop­er­ty of four thou­sand pounds a year! He re­mained, how­ev­er, quite qui­et, wait­ing the elu­ci­da­tion of the mys­tery.

‘Frank, of course you un­der­stand me.’

Frank was obliged to de­clare, that just at the present mo­ment he did not find his aunt so clear as usu­al.

‘You have but one line of con­duct left you, Frank: your po­si­tion, as heir to Gre­shams­bury, is a good one; but your fa­ther has un­for­tu­nate­ly so ham­pered you with re­gard to mon­ey, that un­less you set the mat­ter right your­self, you can nev­er en­joy that po­si­tion. Of course you must mar­ry mon­ey.’

‘Mar­ry mon­ey!’ said he, con­sid­er­ing for the first time that in all prob­abil­ity Mary Thorne’s for­tune would not be ex­ten­sive. ‘Mar­ry mon­ey!’

‘Yes, Frank. I know no man whose po­si­tion so im­per­ative­ly de­mands it; and luck­ily for you, no man can have more fa­cil­ity for do­ing so. In the first place you are very hand­some.’

Frank blushed like a girl of six­teen.

‘And then, as the mat­ter is made plain to you at so ear­ly an age, you are not of course ham­pered by any in­dis­creet tie; by any ab­surd en­gage­ment.’

Frank blushed again; and then say­ing to him­self, ‘How much the old girl knows about it!’ felt a lit­tle proud of his pas­sion for Mary Thorne, and of the dec­la­ra­tion he had made to her.

‘And your con­nex­ion with Cour­cy Cas­tle,’ con­tin­ued the count­ess, now car­ry­ing up the list of Frank’s ad­van­tages to its great­est cli­max, ‘will make the mat­ter so easy for you, that re­al­ly, you will hard­ly have any dif­fi­cul­ty.’

Frank could not but say how much obliged he felt to Cour­cy Cas­tle and its in­mates.

‘Of course I would not wish to in­ter­fere with you in any un­der­hand way, Frank; but I will tell you what has oc­curred to me. You have heard, prob­ably, of Miss Dun­sta­ble?’

‘The daugh­ter of the oint­ment of Lebanon man?’

‘And of course you know that her for­tune is im­mense,’ con­tin­ued the count­ess, not deign­ing to no­tice her nephew’s al­lu­sion to the oint­ment. ‘Quite im­mense when com­pared with the wants and any po­si­tion of any com­mon­er. Now she is com­ing to Cour­cy Cas­tle, and I wish you to come and meet her.’

‘But, aunt, just at this mo­ment I have to read for my de­gree like any­thing. I go up, you know, to Ox­ford.’

‘De­gree!’ said the count­ess. ‘Why, Frank, I am talk­ing to you of your prospects in life, of your fu­ture po­si­tion, of that on which ev­ery­thing hangs, and you tell me of your de­gree!’

Frank, how­ev­er, ob­sti­nate­ly per­sist­ed that he must take his de­gree, and that he should com­mence read­ing hard at six a.m. to­mor­row morn­ing.

‘You can read just as well at Cour­cy Cas­tle. Miss Dun­sta­ble will not in­ter­fere with that,’ said his aunt, who knew the ex­pe­di­en­cy of yield­ing oc­ca­sion­al­ly; ‘but I must beg you will come over and meet her. You will find her a most charm­ing young wom­an, re­mark­ably well ed­ucat­ed I am told, and–’

‘How old is she?’ asked Frank.

‘I re­al­ly can­not say ex­act­ly,’ said the count­ess; ‘but it is not, I imag­ine, a mat­ter of much mo­ment.’

‘Is she thir­ty?’ asked Frank, who looked up­on an un­mar­ried wom­an of that age as quite an old maid.

‘I dare say she may be about that age,’ said the count­ess, who re­gard­ed the sub­ject from a very dif­fer­ent point of view.

‘Thir­ty!’ said Frank out loud, but speak­ing, nev­er­the­less as though to him­self.

‘It is a mat­ter of no mo­ment,’ said his aunt, al­most an­gri­ly. ‘When a sub­ject it­self is of such vi­tal im­por­tance, ob­jec­tions of no re­al weight should not be brought in­to view. If you wish to hold up your head in the coun­try; if you wish to rep­re­sent your coun­ty in Par­lia­ment, as has been done by your fa­ther, your grand­fa­ther, and your great-​grand­fa­thers; if you wish to keep a house over your head, and to leave Gre­shams­bury to your son af­ter you, you must mar­ry mon­ey. What does it sig­ni­fy whether Miss Dun­sta­ble be twen­ty-​eight or thir­ty? She has got mon­ey; and if you mar­ry her, you may then con­sid­er that your po­si­tion in life is made.’

Frank was as­ton­ished at his aunt’s elo­quence; but, in spite of that elo­quence, he made up his mind that he would not mar­ry Miss Dun­sta­ble. How could he, in­deed, see­ing that his troth was al­ready plight­ed to Mary Thorne in the pres­ence of his sis­ter? This cir­cum­stance, how­ev­er, he did not choose to plead to his aunt, so he re­ca­pit­ulat­ed any oth­er ob­jec­tions that pre­sent­ed them­selves to his mind.

In the first place, he was so anx­ious about his de­gree that he could not think of mar­ry­ing at present; then he sug­gest­ed that it might be bet­ter to post­pone the ques­tion till the sea­son’s hunt­ing should be over; he de­clared that he could not vis­it Cour­cy Cas­tle till he got a new suit of clothes home from the tai­lor; and ul­ti­mate­ly re­mem­bered that he had a par­tic­ular en­gage­ment to go fly-​fish­ing with Mr Oriel on that day week.

None, how­ev­er, of these valid rea­sons were suf­fi­cient­ly po­tent to turn the count­ess from her point.

‘Non­sense, Frank,’ said she, ‘I won­der that you can talk of fly-​fish­ing when the prop­er­ty of Gre­shams­bury is at stake. You will go with Au­gus­ta and my­self to Cour­cy Cas­tle to-​mor­row.’

‘To-​mor­row, aunt!’ he said, in the tone which a con­demned crim­inal might make his ejac­ula­tion on hear­ing that a very near day had been named for his ex­ecu­tion. ‘To-​mor­row!’

‘Yes, we re­turn to-​mor­row, and shall be hap­py to have your com­pa­ny. My friends, in­clud­ing Miss Dun­sta­ble, come on Thurs­day. I am quite sure you will like Miss Dun­sta­ble. I have set­tled all that with your moth­er, so we need say noth­ing fur­ther about it. And now, good-​night, Frank.’

Frank, find­ing that there was noth­ing more to be said, took his de­par­ture, and went out to look for Mary. But Mary had gone home with Janet half an hour since, so he be­took him­self to his sis­ter Beat­rice.

‘Beat­rice,’ said he, ‘I am to go to Cour­cy Cas­tle to-​mor­row.’

‘So I heard mam­ma say.’

‘Well; I on­ly came of age to-​day, and I will not be­gin by run­ning counter to them. But I tell you what, I won’t stay above a week at Cour­cy Cas­tle for all the De Cour­cys in Barset­shire. Tell me, Beat­rice, did you ev­er hear of a Miss Dun­sta­ble?’