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

her own heart

had said also. Here was now the answer.

 

“You know you cannot marry him,” Beatrice had said, also. Ah! if that

really were so, was not this embrace deplorable for them both? And

yet how could she not be happy? She endeavoured to repel him; but

with what a weak endeavour! Her pride had been wounded to the core,

not by Lady Arabella’s scorn, but by the conviction which had grown

on her, that though she had given her own heart absolutely away,

had parted with it wholly and for ever, she had received nothing in

return. The world, her world, would know that she had loved, and

loved in vain. But here now was the loved one at her feet; the first

moment that his enforced banishment was over, had brought him there.

How could she not be happy?

 

They all said that she could not marry him. Well, perhaps it might

be so; nay, when she thought of it, must not that edict too probably

be true? But if so, it would not be his fault. He was true to her,

and that satisfied her pride. He had taken from her, by surprise,

a confession of her love. She had often regretted her weakness in

allowing him to do so; but she could not regret it now. She could

endure to suffer; nay, it would not be suffering while he suffered

with her.

 

“Not one word, Mary? Then after all my dreams, after all my patience,

you do not love me at last?”

 

Oh, Frank! notwithstanding what has been said in thy praise, what a

fool thou art! Was any word necessary for thee? Had not her heart

beat against thine? Had she not borne thy caresses? Had there been

one touch of anger when she warded off thy threatened kisses?

Bridget, in the kitchen, when Jonah became amorous, smashed his nose

with the rolling-pin. But when Thomas sinned, perhaps as deeply, she

only talked of doing so. Miss Thorne, in the drawing-room, had she

needed self-protection, could doubtless have found the means, though

the process would probably have been less violent.

 

At last Mary succeeded in her efforts at enfranchisement, and she and

Frank stood at some little distance from each other. She could not

but marvel at him. That long, soft beard, which just now had been so

close to her face, was all new; his whole look was altered; his mien,

and gait, and very voice were not the same. Was this, indeed, the

very Frank who had chattered of his boyish love, two years since, in

the gardens at Greshamsbury?

 

“Not one word of welcome, Mary?”

 

“Indeed, Mr Gresham, you are welcome home.”

 

“Mr Gresham! Tell me, Mary—tell me, at once—has anything happened?

I could not ask up there.”

 

“Frank,” she said, and then stopped; not being able at the moment to

get any further.

 

“Speak to me honestly, Mary; honestly and bravely. I offered you my

hand once before; there it is again. Will you take it?”

 

She looked wistfully up in his eyes; she would fain have taken it.

But though a girl may be honest in such a case, it is so hard for her

to be brave.

 

He still held out his hand. “Mary,” said he, “if you can value it,

it shall be yours through good fortune or ill fortune. There may be

difficulties; but if you can love me, we will get over them. I am a

free man; free to do as I please with myself, except so far as I am

bound to you. There is my hand. Will you have it?” And then he, too,

looked into her eyes, and waited composedly, as though determined to

have an answer.

 

She slowly raised her hand, and, as she did so, her eyes fell to the

ground. It then drooped again, and was again raised; and, at last,

her light tapering fingers rested on his broad open palm.

 

They were soon clutched, and the whole hand brought absolutely within

his grasp. “There, now you are my own!” he said, “and none of them

shall part us; my own Mary, my own wife.”

 

“Oh, Frank, is not this imprudent? Is it not wrong?”

 

“Imprudent! I am sick of prudence. I hate prudence. And as for

wrong—no. I say it is not wrong; certainly not wrong if we love each

other. And you do love me, Mary—eh? You do! don’t you?”

 

He would not excuse her, or allow her to escape from saying it in so

many words; and when the words did come at last, they came freely.

“Yes, Frank, I do love you; if that were all you would have no cause

for fear.”

 

“And I will have no cause for fear.”

 

“Ah; but your father, Frank, and my uncle. I can never bring myself

to do anything that shall bring either of them to sorrow.”

 

Frank, of course, ran through all his arguments. He would go into a

profession, or take a farm and live in it. He would wait; that is,

for a few months. “A few months, Frank!” said Mary. “Well, perhaps

six.” “Oh, Frank!” But Frank would not be stopped. He would do

anything that his father might ask him. Anything but the one thing.

He would not give up the wife he had chosen. It would not be

reasonable, or proper, or righteous that he should be asked to do so;

and here he mounted a somewhat high horse.

 

Mary had no arguments which she could bring from her heart to offer

in opposition to all this. She could only leave her hand in his, and

feel that she was happier than she had been at any time since the day

of that donkey-ride at Boxall Hill.

 

“But, Mary,” continued he, becoming very grave and serious. “We must

be true to each other, and firm in this. Nothing that any of them can

say shall drive me from my purpose; will you say as much?”

 

Her hand was still in his, and so she stood, thinking for a moment

before she answered him. But she could not do less for him than he

was willing to do for her. “Yes,” said she—said in a very low voice,

and with a manner perfectly quiet—“I will be firm. Nothing that they

can say shall shake me. But, Frank, it cannot be soon.”

 

Nothing further occurred in this interview which needs recording.

Frank had been three times told by Mary that he had better go before

he did go; and, at last, she was obliged to take the matter into her

own hands, and lead him to the door.

 

“You are in a great hurry to get rid of me,” said he.

 

“You have been here two hours, and you must go now; what will they

all think?”

 

“Who cares what they think? Let them think the truth: that after a

year’s absence, I have much to say to you.” However, at last, he did

go, and Mary was left alone.

 

Frank, although he had been so slow to move, had a thousand other

things to do, and went about them at once. He was very much in love,

no doubt; but that did not interfere with his interest in other

pursuits. In the first place, he had to see Harry Baker, and Harry

Baker’s stud. Harry had been specially charged to look after the

black horse during Frank’s absence, and the holiday doings of

that valuable animal had to be inquired into. Then the kennel of

the hounds had to be visited, and—as a matter of second-rate

importance—the master. This could not be done on the same day; but a

plan for doing so must be concocted with Harry—and then there were

two young pointer pups.

 

Frank, when he left his betrothed, went about these things quite as

vehemently as though he were not in love at all; quite as vehemently

as though he had said nothing as to going into some profession which

must necessarily separate him from horses and dogs. But Mary sat

there at her window, thinking of her love, and thinking of nothing

else. It was all in all to her now. She had pledged herself not to be

shaken from her troth by anything, by any person; and it would behove

her to be true to this pledge. True to it, though all the Greshams

but one should oppose her with all their power; true to it, even

though her own uncle should oppose her.

 

And how could she have done any other than so pledge herself, invoked

to it as she had been? How could she do less for him than he was so

anxious to do for her? They would talk to her of maiden delicacy, and

tell her that she had put a stain on that snow-white coat of proof,

in confessing her love for one whose friends were unwilling to

receive her. Let them so talk. Honour, honesty, and truth, out-spoken

truth, self-denying truth, and fealty from man to man, are worth more

than maiden delicacy; more, at any rate, than the talk of it. It

was not for herself that this pledge had been made. She knew her

position, and the difficulties of it; she knew also the value of it.

He had much to offer, much to give; she had nothing but herself. He

had name, and old repute, family, honour, and what eventually would

at least be wealth to her. She was nameless, fameless, portionless.

He had come there with all his ardour, with the impulse of his

character, and asked for her love. It was already his own. He had

then demanded her troth, and she acknowledged that he had a right to

demand it. She would be his if ever it should be in his power to take

her.

 

But there let the bargain end. She would always remember, that though

it was in her power to keep her pledge, it might too probably not be

in his power to keep his. That doctrine, laid down so imperatively

by the great authorities of Greshamsbury, that edict, which demanded

that Frank should marry money, had come home also to her with a

certain force. It would be sad that the fame of Greshamsbury should

perish, and that the glory should depart from the old house. It might

be, that Frank also should perceive that he must marry money. It

would be a pity that he had not seen it sooner; but she, at any rate,

would not complain.

 

And so she stood, leaning on the open window, with her book unnoticed

lying beside her. The sun had been in the mid-sky when Frank had left

her, but its rays were beginning to stream into the room from the

west before she moved from her position. Her first thought in the

morning had been this: Would he come to see her? Her last now was

more soothing to her, less full of absolute fear: Would it be right

that he should come again?

 

The first sounds she heard were the footsteps of her uncle, as he

came up to the drawing-room, three steps at a time. His step was

always heavy; but when he was disturbed in spirit, it was slow; when

merely fatigued in body by ordinary work, it was quick.

 

“What a broiling day!” he said, and he threw himself into a chair.

“For mercy’s sake give me something to drink.” Now the doctor was a

great man for summer-drinks. In his house, lemonade, currant-juice,

orange-mixtures, and raspberry-vinegar were used by the quart. He

frequently disapproved of these things for his patients, as being apt

to disarrange the digestion; but he consumed enough