Doctor Thorne, Anthony Trollope [best book reader .txt] 📗
- Author: Anthony Trollope
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lent the squire large sums of money on mortgage, in all which
transactions the doctor had taken part. It had therefore come to pass
that Mr Gresham was not unfrequently called upon to discuss his money
affairs with Dr Thorne, and occasionally to submit to lectures and
advice which might perhaps as well have been omitted.
So much for Dr Thorne. A few words must still be said about Miss Mary
before we rush into our story; the crust will then have been broken,
and the pie will be open to the guests. Little Miss Mary was kept at
a farm-house till she was six; she was then sent to school at Bath,
and transplanted to the doctor’s newly furnished house a little more
than six years after that. It must not be supposed that he had lost
sight of his charge during her earlier years. He was much too well
aware of the nature of the promise which he had made to the departing
mother to do that. He had constantly visited his little niece, and
long before the first twelve years of her life were over had lost all
consciousness of his promise, and of his duty to the mother, in the
stronger ties of downright personal love for the only creature that
belonged to him.
When Mary came home the doctor was like a child in his glee. He
prepared surprises for her with as much forethought and trouble as
though he were contriving mines to blow up an enemy. He took her
first into the shop, and then into the kitchen, thence to the
dining-rooms, after that to his and her bedrooms, and so on till
he came to the full glory of the new drawing-room, enhancing the
pleasure by little jokes, and telling her that he should never dare
to come into the last paradise without her permission, and not then
till he had taken off his boots. Child as she was, she understood the
joke, and carried it on like a little queen; and so they soon became
the firmest of friends.
But though Mary was a queen, it was still necessary that she should
be educated. Those were the earlier days in which Lady Arabella had
humbled herself, and to show her humility she invited Mary to share
the music-lessons of Augusta and Beatrice at the great house. A
music-master from Barchester came over three times a week, and
remained for three hours, and if the doctor chose to send his girl
over, she could pick up what was going on without doing any harm.
So said the Lady Arabella. The doctor with many thanks and with no
hesitation, accepted the offer, merely adding, that he had perhaps
better settle separately with Signor Cantabili, the music-master. He
was very much obliged to Lady Arabella for giving his little girl
permission to join her lessons to those of the Miss Greshams.
It need hardly be said that the Lady Arabella was on fire at once.
Settle with Signor Cantabili! No, indeed; she would do that; there
must be no expense whatever incurred in such an arrangement on Miss
Thorne’s account! But here, as in most things, the doctor carried his
point. It being the time of the lady’s humility, she could not make
as good a fight as she would otherwise have done; and thus she
found, to her great disgust, that Mary Thorne was learning music in
her schoolroom on equal terms, as regarded payment, with her own
daughters. The arrangement having been made could not be broken,
especially as the young lady in nowise made herself disagreeable; and
more especially as the Miss Greshams themselves were very fond of
her.
And so Mary Thorne learnt music at Greshamsbury, and with her music
she learnt other things also; how to behave herself among girls of
her own age; how to speak and talk as other young ladies do; how to
dress herself, and how to move and walk. All which, she, being quick
to learn, learnt without trouble at the great house. Something also
she learnt of French, seeing that the Greshamsbury French governess
was always in the room.
And then, some few years later, there came a rector, and a rector’s
sister; and with the latter Mary studied German, and French also.
From the doctor himself she learnt much; the choice, namely, of
English books for her own reading, and habits of thought somewhat
akin to his own, though modified by the feminine softness of her
individual mind.
And so Mary Thorne grew up and was educated. Of her personal
appearance it certainly is my business as an author to say something.
She is my heroine, and, as such, must necessarily be very beautiful;
but, in truth, her mind and inner qualities are more clearly distinct
to my brain than her outward form and features. I know that she was
far from being tall, and far from being showy; that her feet and
hands were small and delicate; that her eyes were bright when looked
at, but not brilliant so as to make their brilliancy palpably
visible to all around her; her hair was dark brown, and worn very
plainly brushed from her forehead; her lips were thin, and her
mouth, perhaps, in general inexpressive, but when she was eager in
conversation it would show itself to be animated with curves of
wondrous energy; and, quiet as she was in manner, sober and demure as
was her usual settled appearance, she could talk, when the fit came
on her, with an energy which in truth surprised those who did not
know her; aye, and sometimes those who did. Energy! nay, it was
occasionally a concentration of passion, which left her for the
moment perfectly unconscious of all other cares but solicitude for
that subject which she might then be advocating.
All her friends, including the doctor, had at times been made unhappy
by this vehemence of character; but yet it was to that very vehemence
that she owed it that all her friends so loved her. It had once
nearly banished her in early years from the Greshamsbury schoolroom;
and yet it ended in making her claim to remain there so strong, that
Lady Arabella could no longer oppose it, even when she had the wish
to do so.
A new French governess had lately come to Greshamsbury, and was, or
was to be, a great pet with Lady Arabella, having all the great gifts
with which a governess can be endowed, and being also a protégée
from the castle. The castle, in Greshamsbury parlance, always meant
that of Courcy. Soon after this a valued little locket belonging to
Augusta Gresham was missing. The French governess had objected to its
being worn in the schoolroom, and it had been sent up to the bedroom
by a young servant-girl, the daughter of a small farmer on the
estate. The locket was missing, and after a while, a considerable
noise in the matter having been made, was found, by the diligence of
the governess, somewhere among the belongings of the English servant.
Great was the anger of Lady Arabella, loud were the protestations
of the girl, mute the woe of her father, piteous the tears of her
mother, inexorable the judgment of the Greshamsbury world. But
something occurred, it matters now not what, to separate Mary Thorne
in opinion from that world at large. Out she then spoke, and to her
face accused the governess of the robbery. For two days Mary was in
disgrace almost as deep as that of the farmer’s daughter. But she was
neither quiet nor dumb in her disgrace. When Lady Arabella would not
hear her, she went to Mr Gresham. She forced her uncle to move in the
matter. She gained over to her side, one by one, the potentates of
the parish, and ended by bringing Mam’selle Larron down on her knees
with a confession of the facts. From that time Mary Thorne was dear
to the tenantry of Greshamsbury; and specially dear at one small
household, where a rough-spoken father of a family was often heard to
declare, that for Miss Mary Thorne he’d face man or magistrate, duke
or devil.
And so Mary Thorne grew up under the doctor’s eye, and at the
beginning of our tale she was one of the guests assembled at
Greshamsbury on the coming of age of the heir, she herself having
then arrived at the same period of her life.
Lessons from Courcy Castle
It was the first of July, young Frank Gresham’s birthday, and the
London season was not yet over; nevertheless, Lady de Courcy had
managed to get down into the country to grace the coming of age
of the heir, bringing with her all the Ladies Amelia, Rosina,
Margaretta, and Alexandrina, together with such of the Honourable
Johns and Georges as could be collected for the occasion.
The Lady Arabella had contrived this year to spend ten weeks in town,
which, by a little stretching, she made to pass for the season; and
had managed, moreover, at last to refurnish, not ingloriously, the
Portman Square drawing-room. She had gone up to London under the
pretext, imperatively urged, of Augusta’s teeth—young ladies’ teeth
are not unfrequently of value in this way;—and having received
authority for a new carpet, which was really much wanted, had made
such dexterous use of that sanction as to run up an upholsterer’s
bill of six or seven hundred pounds. She had of course had her
carriage and horses; the girls of course had gone out; it had been
positively necessary to have a few friends in Portman Square;
and, altogether, the ten weeks had not been unpleasant, and not
inexpensive.
For a few confidential minutes before dinner, Lady de Courcy and her
sister-in-law sat together in the latter’s dressing-room, discussing
the unreasonableness of the squire, who had expressed himself with
more than ordinary bitterness as to the folly—he had probably used
some stronger word—of these London proceedings.
“Heavens!” said the countess, with much eager animation; “what can
the man expect? What does he wish you to do?”
“He would like to sell the house in London, and bury us all here for
ever. Mind, I was there only for ten weeks.”
“Barely time for the girls to get their teeth properly looked at! But
Arabella, what does he say?” Lady de Courcy was very anxious to learn
the exact truth of the matter, and ascertain, if she could, whether
Mr Gresham was really as poor as he pretended to be.
“Why, he said yesterday that he would have no more going to town at
all; that he was barely able to pay the claims made on him, and keep
up the house here, and that he would not—”
“Would not what?” asked the countess.
“Why, he said that he would not utterly ruin poor Frank.”
“Ruin Frank!”
“That’s what he said.”
“But, surely, Arabella, it is not so bad as that? What possible
reason can there be for him to be in debt?”
“He is always talking of those elections.”
“But, my dear, Boxall Hill paid all that off. Of course Frank will
not have such an income as there was when you married into the
family; we all know that. And whom will he have to thank but his
father? But Boxall Hill paid all those debts, and why should there be
any difficulty now?”
“It was those nasty dogs, Rosina,” said the Lady Arabella, almost in
tears.
“Well, I for one never approved of the hounds coming to Greshamsbury.
When a man has once involved his property he should not incur any
expenses that are not absolutely necessary. That is a golden rule
which Mr Gresham ought
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