Framley Parsonage, Anthony Trollope [popular e readers txt] 📗

“Perhaps not as much as you ought to do⁠—on yourself.”

“Now, what do you mean, Mary? I won’t be bullied and teased, and have innuendos thrown out at me, because you’ve got something on your mind, and don’t quite dare to speak it out. If you have got anything to say, say it.”

But Mrs. Gresham did not choose to say it at that moment. She held her peace, and went on arranging her flowers⁠—now with a more satisfied air, and without destruction to the geraniums. And when she had grouped her bunches properly she carried the jar from one part of the room to another, backwards and forwards, trying the effect of the colours, as though her mind was quite intent upon her flowers, and was for the moment wholly unoccupied with any other subject.

But Miss Dunstable was not the woman to put up with this. She sat silent in her place, while her friend made one or two turns about the room; and then she got up from her seat also. “Mary,” she said, “give over about those wretched bits of green branches and leave the jars where they are. You’re trying to fidget me into a passion.”

“Am I?” said Mrs. Gresham, standing opposite to a big bowl, and putting her head a little on one side, as though she could better look at her handiwork in that position.

“You know you are; and it’s all because you lack courage to speak out. You didn’t begin at me in this way for nothing.”

“I do lack courage. That’s just it,” said Mrs. Gresham, still giving a twist here and a set there to some of the small sprigs which constituted the background of her bouquet. “I do lack courage⁠—to have ill motives imputed to me. I was thinking of saying something, and I am afraid, and therefore I will not say it. And now, if you like, I will be ready to take you out in ten minutes.”

But Miss Dunstable was not going to be put off in this way. And to tell the truth, I must admit that her friend Mrs. Gresham was not using her altogether well. She should either have held her peace on the matter altogether⁠—which would probably have been her wiser course⁠—or she should have declared her own ideas boldly, feeling secure in her own conscience as to her own motives. “I shall not stir from this room,” said Miss Dunstable, “till I have had this matter out with you. And as for imputations⁠—my imputing bad motives to you⁠—I don’t know how far you may be joking, and saying what you call sharp things to me; but you have no right to think that I should think evil of you. If you really do think so, it is treason to the love I have for you. If I thought that you thought so, I could not remain in the house with you. What! you are not able to know the difference which one makes between one’s real friends and one’s mock friends! I don’t believe it of you, and I know you are only striving to bully me.” And Miss Dunstable now took her turn of walking up and down the room.

“Well, she shan’t be bullied,” said Mrs. Gresham, leaving her flowers, and putting her arm round her friend’s waist;⁠—“at least, not here, in this house, although she is sometimes such a bully herself.”

“Mary, you have gone too far about this to go back. Tell me what it was that was on your mind, and as far as it concerns me, I will answer you honestly.”

Mrs. Gresham now began to repent that she had made her little attempt. That uttering of hints in a half-joking way was all very well, and might possibly bring about the desired result, without the necessity of any formal suggestion on her part; but now she was so brought to book that she must say something formal. She must commit herself to the expression of her own wishes, and to an expression also of an opinion as to what had been the wishes of her friend; and this she must do without being able to say anything as to the wishes of that third person.

“Well,” she said, “I suppose you know what I meant.”

“I suppose I did,” said Miss Dunstable; “but it is not at all the less necessary that you should say it out. I am not to commit myself by my interpretation of your thoughts, while you remain perfectly secure in having only hinted your own. I hate hints, as I do⁠—the mischief. I go in for the bishop’s doctrine. Magna est veritas.”

“Well, I don’t know,” said Mrs. Gresham.

“Ah! but I do,” said Miss Dunstable. “And therefore go on, or forever hold your peace.”

“That’s just it,” said Mrs. Gresham.

“What’s just it?” said Miss Dunstable.

“The quotation out of the Prayer Book which you finished just now. ‘If any of you know cause or just impediment why these two persons should not be joined together in holy matrimony, ye are to declare it. This is the first time of asking.’ Do you know any cause, Miss Dunstable?”

“Do you know any, Mrs. Gresham?”

“None, on my honour!” said the younger lady, putting her hand upon her breast.

“Ah! but do you not?” and Miss Dunstable caught hold of her arm, and spoke almost abruptly in her energy.

“No, certainly not. What impediment? If I did, I should not have broached the subject. I declare I think you would both be very happy together. Of course, there is one impediment; we all know that. That must be your look out.”

“What do you mean? What impediment?”

“Your own money.”

“Psha! Did you find that an impediment in marrying Frank Gresham?”

“Ah! the matter was so different there. He had much more to give than I had, when all was counted. And I had no money when we⁠—when we were first engaged.” And the tears came into her eyes as she thought of the circumstances of her early love;⁠—all of which