Doctor Thorne, Anthony Trollope [best book reader .txt] 📗

you. You MUST marry money.” And then

Lady Arabella stood up before her son as Lady Macbeth might have

stood, had Lady Macbeth lived to have a son of Frank’s years.

 

“Miss Dunstable, I suppose,” said Frank, scornfully. “No, mother; I

made an ass, and worse than an ass of myself once in that way, and I

won’t do it again. I hate money.”

 

“Oh, Frank!”

 

“I hate money.”

 

“But, Frank, the estate?”

 

“I hate the estate—at least I shall hate it if I am expected to buy

it at such a price as that. The estate is my father’s.”

 

“Oh, no, Frank; it is not.”

 

“It is in the sense I mean. He may do with it as he pleases; he will

never have a word of complaint from me. I am ready to go into a

profession to-morrow. I’ll be a lawyer, or a doctor, or an engineer;

I don’t care what.” Frank, in his enthusiasm, probably overlooked

some of the preliminary difficulties. “Or I’ll take a farm under him,

and earn my bread that way; but, mother, don’t talk to me any more

about marrying money.” And, so saying, Frank left the room.

 

Frank, it will be remembered, was twenty-one when he was first

introduced to the reader; he is now twenty-two. It may be said that

there was a great difference between his character then and now. A

year at that period will make a great difference; but the change has

been, not in his character, but in his feelings.

 

Frank went out from his mother and immediately ordered his black

horse to be got ready for him. He would at once go over to Boxall

Hill. He went himself to the stables to give his orders; and as he

returned to get his gloves and whip he met Beatrice in the corridor.

 

“Beatrice,” said he, “step in here,” and she followed him into his

room. “I’m not going to bear this any longer; I’m going to Boxall

Hill.”

 

“Oh, Frank! how can you be so imprudent?”

 

“You, at any rate, have some decent feeling for Mary. I believe you

have some regard for her; and therefore I tell you. Will you send her

any message?”

 

“Oh, yes; my best, best love; that is if you will see her; but,

Frank, you are very foolish, very; and she will be infinitely

distressed.”

 

“Do not mention this, that is, not at present; not that I mean to

make any secret of it. I shall tell my father everything. I’m off

now!” and then, paying no attention to her remonstrance, he turned

down the stairs and was soon on horseback.

 

He took the road to Boxall Hill, but he did not ride very fast: he

did not go jauntily as a jolly, thriving wooer; but musingly, and

often with diffidence, meditating every now and then whether it

would not be better for him to turn back: to turn back—but not from

fear of his mother; not from prudential motives; not because that

often-repeated lesson as to marrying money was beginning to take

effect; not from such causes as these; but because he doubted how he

might be received by Mary.

 

He did, it is true, think something about his worldly prospects. He

had talked rather grandiloquently to his mother as to his hating

money, and hating the estate. His mother’s never-ceasing worldly

cares on such subjects perhaps demanded that a little grandiloquence

should be opposed to them. But Frank did not hate the estate; nor did

he at all hate the position of an English country gentleman. Miss

Dunstable’s eloquence, however, rang in his ears. For Miss Dunstable

had an eloquence of her own, even in her letters. “Never let them

talk you out of your own true, honest, hearty feelings,” she had

said. “Greshamsbury is a very nice place, I am sure; and I hope I

shall see it some day; but all its green knolls are not half so nice,

should not be half so precious, as the pulses of your own heart. That

is your own estate, your own, your very own—your own and another’s;

whatever may go to the money-lenders, don’t send that there. Don’t

mortgage that, Mr Gresham.”

 

“No,” said Frank, pluckily, as he put his horse into a faster trot,

“I won’t mortgage that. They may do what they like with the estate;

but my heart’s my own,” and so speaking to himself, almost aloud, he

turned a corner of the road rapidly and came at once upon the doctor.

 

“Hallo, doctor! is that you?” said Frank, rather disgusted.

 

“What! Frank! I hardly expected to meet you here,” said Dr Thorne,

not much better pleased.

 

They were now not above a mile from Boxall Hill, and the doctor,

therefore, could not but surmise whither Frank was going. They had

repeatedly met since Frank’s return from Cambridge, both in the

village and in the doctor’s house; but not a word had been said

between them about Mary beyond what the merest courtesy had required.

Not that each did not love the other sufficiently to make a full

confidence between them desirable to both; but neither had had the

courage to speak out.

 

Nor had either of them the courage to do so now. “Yes,” said Frank,

blushing, “I am going to Lady Scatcherd’s. Shall I find the ladies at

home?”

 

“Yes; Lady Scatcherd is there; but Sir Louis is there also—an

invalid: perhaps you would not wish to meet him.”

 

“Oh! I don’t mind,” said Frank, trying to laugh; “he won’t bite, I

suppose?”

 

The doctor longed in his heart to pray to Frank to return with him;

not to go and make further mischief; not to do that which might cause

a more bitter estrangement between himself and the squire. But he had

not the courage to do it. He could not bring himself to accuse Frank

of being in love with his niece. So after a few more senseless words

on either side, words which each knew to be senseless as he uttered

them, they both rode on their own ways.

 

And then the doctor silently, and almost unconsciously, made such a

comparison between Louis Scatcherd and Frank Gresham as Hamlet made

between the dead and live king. It was Hyperion to a satyr. Was it

not as impossible that Mary should not love the one, as that she

should love the other? Frank’s offer of his affections had at first

probably been but a boyish ebullition of feeling; but if it should

now be, that this had grown into a manly and disinterested love, how

could Mary remain unmoved? What could her heart want more, better,

more beautiful, more rich than such a love as his? Was he not

personally all that a girl could like? Were not his disposition,

mind, character, acquirements, all such as women most delight to

love? Was it not impossible that Mary should be indifferent to him?

 

So meditated the doctor as he rode along, with only too true a

knowledge of human nature. Ah! it was impossible, it was quite

impossible that Mary should be indifferent. She had never been

indifferent since Frank had uttered his first half-joking word of

love. Such things are more important to women than they are to men,

to girls than they are to boys. When Frank had first told her that he

loved her; aye, months before that, when he merely looked his love,

her heart had received the whisper, had acknowledged the glance,

unconscious as she was herself, and resolved as she was to rebuke his

advances. When, in her hearing, he had said soft nothings to Patience

Oriel, a hated, irrepressible tear had gathered in her eye. When he

had pressed in his warm, loving grasp the hand which she had offered

him as a token of mere friendship, her heart had forgiven him the

treachery, nay, almost thanked him for it, before her eyes or

her words had been ready to rebuke him. When the rumour of his

liaison with Miss Dunstable reached her ears, when she heard of

Miss Dunstable’s fortune, she had wept, wept outright, in her

chamber—wept, as she said to herself, to think that he should be so

mercenary; but she had wept, as she should have said to herself, at

finding that he was so faithless. Then, when she knew at last that

this rumour was false, when she found that she was banished from

Greshamsbury for his sake, when she was forced to retreat with her

friend Patience, how could she but love him, in that he was not

mercenary? How could she not love him in that he was so faithful?

 

It was impossible that she should not love him. Was he not the

brightest and the best of men that she had ever seen, or was like

to see?—that she could possibly ever see, she would have said to

herself, could she have brought herself to own the truth? And then,

when she heard how true he was, how he persisted against father,

mother, and sisters, how could it be that that should not be a merit

in her eyes which was so great a fault in theirs? When Beatrice, with

would-be solemn face, but with eyes beaming with feminine affection,

would gravely talk of Frank’s tender love as a terrible misfortune,

as a misfortune to them all, to Mary herself as well as others, how

could Mary do other than love him? “Beatrice is his sister,” she

would say within her own mind, “otherwise she would never talk like

this; were she not his sister, she could not but know the value of

such love as this.” Ah! yes; Mary did love him; love him with all the

strength of her heart; and the strength of her heart was very great.

And now by degrees, in those lonely donkey-rides at Boxall Hill, in

those solitary walks, she was beginning to own to herself the truth.

 

And now that she did own it, what should be her course? What should

she do, how should she act if this loved one persevered in his

love? And, ah! what should she do, how should she act if he did not

persevere? Could it be that there should be happiness in store for

her? Was it not too clear that, let the matter go how it would, there

was no happiness in store for her? Much as she might love Frank

Gresham, she could never consent to be his wife unless the squire

would smile on her as his daughter-in-law. The squire had been

all that was kind, all that was affectionate. And then, too, Lady

Arabella! As she thought of the Lady Arabella a sterner form of

thought came across her brow. Why should Lady Arabella rob her of her

heart’s joy? What was Lady Arabella that she, Mary Thorne, need quail

before her? Had Lady Arabella stood only in her way, Lady Arabella,

flanked by the de Courcy legion, Mary felt that she could have

demanded Frank’s hand as her own before them all without a blush of

shame or a moment’s hesitation. Thus, when her heart was all but

ready to collapse within her, would she gain some little strength by

thinking of the Lady Arabella.

 

“Please, my lady, here be young squoire Gresham,” said one of the

untutored servants at Boxall Hill, opening Lady Scatcherd’s little

parlour door as her ladyship was amusing herself by pulling down and

turning, and refolding, and putting up again, a heap of household

linen which was kept in a huge press for the express purpose of

supplying her with occupation.

 

Lady Scatcherd, holding a vast counterpane in her arms, looked back

over her shoulders and perceived that Frank was