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

in the room. Down

went the counterpane on the ground, and Frank soon found himself in

the very position which that useful article had so lately filled.

 

“Oh! Master Frank! oh, Master Frank!” said her ladyship, almost in an

hysterical fit of joy; and then she hugged and kissed him as she had

never kissed and hugged her own son since that son had first left the

parent nest.

 

Frank bore it patiently and with a merry laugh. “But, Lady

Scatcherd,” said he, “what will they all say? you forget I am a man

now,” and he stooped his head as she again pressed her lips upon his

forehead.

 

“I don’t care what none of ‘em say,” said her ladyship, quite going

back to her old days; “I will kiss my own boy; so I will. Eh, but

Master Frank, this is good of you. A sight of you is good for sore

eyes; and my eyes have been sore enough too since I saw you;” and she

put her apron up to wipe away a tear.

 

“Yes,” said Frank, gently trying to disengage himself, but not

successfully; “yes, you have had a great loss, Lady Scatcherd. I was

so sorry when I heard of your grief.”

 

“You always had a soft, kind heart, Master Frank; so you had. God’s

blessing on you! What a fine man you have grown! Deary me! Well, it

seems as though it were only just t’other day like.” And she pushed

him a little off from her, so that she might look the better into his

face.

 

“Well. Is it all right? I suppose you would hardly know me again now

I’ve got a pair of whiskers?”

 

“Know you! I should know you well if I saw but the heel of your

foot. Why, what a head of hair you have got, and so dark too! but it

doesn’t curl as it used once.” And she stroked his hair, and looked

into his eyes, and put her hand to his cheeks. “You’ll think me an

old fool, Master Frank: I know that; but you may think what you like.

If I live for the next twenty years you’ll always be my own boy; so

you will.”

 

By degrees, slow degrees, Frank managed to change the conversation,

and to induce Lady Scatcherd to speak on some other topic than his

own infantine perfections. He affected an indifference as he spoke of

her guest, which would have deceived no one but Lady Scatcherd; but

her it did deceive; and then he asked where Mary was.

 

“She’s just gone out on her donkey—somewhere about the place. She

rides on a donkey mostly every day. But you’ll stop and take a bit of

dinner with us? Eh, now do ‘ee, Master Frank.”

 

But Master Frank excused himself. He did not choose to pledge himself

to sit down to dinner with Mary. He did not know in what mood they

might return with regard to each other at dinner-time. He said,

therefore, that he would walk out and, if possible, find Miss Thorne;

and that he would return to the house again before he went.

 

Lady Scatcherd then began making apologies for Sir Louis. He was an

invalid; the doctor had been with him all the morning, and he was not

yet out of his room.

 

These apologies Frank willingly accepted, and then made his way as

he could on to the lawn. A gardener, of whom he inquired, offered to

go with him in pursuit of Miss Thorne. This assistance, however, he

declined, and set forth in quest of her, having learnt what were her

most usual haunts. Nor was he directed wrongly; for after walking

about twenty minutes, he saw through the trees the legs of a donkey

moving on the green-sward, at about two hundred yards from him. On

that donkey doubtless sat Mary Thorne.

 

The donkey was coming towards him; not exactly in a straight line,

but so much so as to make it impossible that Mary should not see him

if he stood still. He did stand still, and soon emerging from the

trees, Mary saw him all but close to her.

 

Her heart gave a leap within her, but she was so far mistress of

herself as to repress any visible sign of outward emotion. She did

not fall from her donkey, or scream, or burst into tears. She merely

uttered the words, “Mr Gresham!” in a tone of not unnatural surprise.

 

“Yes,” said he, trying to laugh, but less successful than she had

been in suppressing a show of feeling. “Mr Gresham! I have come over

at last to pay my respects to you. You must have thought me very

uncourteous not to do so before.”

 

This she denied. “She had not,” she said, “thought him at all

uncivil. She had come to Boxall Hill to be out of the way; and, of

course, had not expected any such formalities.” As she uttered this

she almost blushed at the abrupt truth of what she was saying. But

she was taken so much unawares that she did not know how to make the

truth other than abrupt.

 

“To be out of the way!” said Frank. “And why should you want to be

out of the way?”

 

“Oh! there were reasons,” said she, laughing. “Perhaps I have

quarrelled dreadfully with my uncle.”

 

Frank at the present moment had not about him a scrap of badinage. He

had not a single easy word at his command. He could not answer her

with anything in guise of a joke; so he walked on, not answering at

all.

 

“I hope all my friends at Greshamsbury are well,” said Mary. “Is

Beatrice quite well?”

 

“Quite well,” said he.

 

“And Patience?”

 

“What, Miss Oriel; yes, I believe so. I haven’t seen her this day or

two.” How was it that Mary felt a little flush of joy, as Frank spoke

in this indifferent way about Miss Oriel’s health?

 

“I thought she was always a particular friend of yours,” said she.

 

“What! who? Miss Oriel? So she is! I like her amazingly; so does

Beatrice.” And then he walked about six steps in silence, plucking up

courage for the great attempt. He did pluck up his courage and then

rushed at once to the attack.

 

“Mary!” said he, and as he spoke he put his hand on the donkey’s

neck, and looked tenderly into her face. He looked tenderly, and, as

Mary’s ear at once told her, his voice sounded more soft than it had

ever sounded before. “Mary, do you remember the last time that we

were together?”

 

Mary did remember it well. It was on that occasion when he had

treacherously held her hand; on that day when, according to law, he

had become a man; when he had outraged all the propriety of the de

Courcy interest by offering his love to Mary in Augusta’s hearing.

Mary did remember it well; but how was she to speak of it? “It was

your birthday, I think,” said she.

 

“Yes, it was my birthday. I wonder whether you remember what I said

to you then?”

 

“I remember that you were very foolish, Mr Gresham.”

 

“Mary, I have come to repeat my folly;—that is, if it be folly.

I told you then that I loved you, and I dare say that I did so

awkwardly, like a boy. Perhaps I may be just as awkward now; but you

ought at any rate to believe me when you find that a year has not

altered me.”

 

Mary did not think him at all awkward, and she did believe him. But

how was she to answer him? She had not yet taught herself what answer

she ought to make if he persisted in his suit. She had hitherto been

content to run away from him; but she had done so because she would

not submit to be accused of the indelicacy of putting herself in his

way. She had rebuked him when he first spoke of his love; but she had

done so because she looked on what he said as a boy’s nonsense. She

had schooled herself in obedience to the Greshamsbury doctrines. Was

there any real reason, any reason founded on truth and honesty, why

she should not be a fitting wife to Frank Gresham,—Francis Newbold

Gresham, of Greshamsbury, though he was, or was to be?

 

He was well born—as well born as any gentleman in England. She

was basely born—as basely born as any lady could be. Was this

sufficient bar against such a match? Mary felt in her heart that some

twelvemonth since, before she knew what little she did now know of

her own story, she would have said it was so. And would she indulge

her own love by inveigling him she loved into a base marriage? But

then reason spoke again. What, after all, was this blood of which she

had taught herself to think so much? Would she have been more honest,

more fit to grace an honest man’s hearthstone, had she been the

legitimate descendant of a score of legitimate duchesses? Was it not

her first duty to think of him—of what would make him happy? Then of

her uncle—what he would approve? Then of herself—what would best

become her modesty; her sense of honour? Could it be well that she

should sacrifice the happiness of two persons to a theoretic love of

pure blood?

 

So she had argued within herself; not now, sitting on the donkey,

with Frank’s hand before her on the tame brute’s neck; but on other

former occasions as she had ridden along demurely among those trees.

So she had argued; but she had never brought her arguments to a

decision. All manner of thoughts crowded on her to prevent her doing

so. She would think of the squire, and resolve to reject Frank; and

would then remember Lady Arabella, and resolve to accept him. Her

resolutions, however, were most irresolute; and so, when Frank

appeared in person before her, carrying his heart in his hand, she

did not know what answer to make to him. Thus it was with her as with

so many other maidens similarly circumstanced; at last she left it

all to chance.

 

“You ought, at any rate, to believe me,” said Frank, “when you find

that a year has not altered me.”

 

“A year should have taught you to be wiser,” said she. “You should

have learnt by this time, Mr Gresham, that your lot and mine are not

cast in the same mould; that our stations in life are different.

Would your father or mother approve of your even coming here to see

me?”

 

Mary, as she spoke these sensible words, felt that they were “flat,

stale, and unprofitable.” She felt, also, that they were not true in

sense; that they did not come from her heart; that they were not such

as Frank deserved at her hands, and she was ashamed of herself.

 

“My father I hope will approve of it,” said he. “That my mother

should disapprove of it is a misfortune which I cannot help; but

on this point I will take no answer from my father or mother; the

question is one too personal to myself. Mary, if you say that you

will not, or cannot return my love, I will go away;—not from here

only, but from Greshamsbury. My presence shall not banish you from

all that you hold dear. If you can honestly say that I am nothing to

you, can be nothing to you, I will then tell my mother that she may

be at ease, and I will go away somewhere and get over it as I may.”